July 28, 2025
Israeli NGOs say government is committing genocide in Gaza
Jerusalem-based human rights NGO B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) have presented their findings following an investigation into the conduct of the Israeli government and the military in the Gaza Strip.
The B’Tselem report points to a decisive shift in policy following the October 7, 2023, attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas. While purporting to be fighting only Hamas, the report found, the government was engaging in a policy of “mass killing, both in direct attacks and through creating catastrophic living conditions that increase the massive death toll.”
It also said that Israeli forces had inflicted “serious bodily or mental harm [on] the entire population of the Strip” and had engaged in “large-scale destruction of infrastructure” and “destruction of the social fabric, including Palestinian educational institutions and cultural sites.”
The report also pointed to “mass arrests and abuse of detainees in Israeli prisons, which have effectively become torture camps for thousands of Palestinians held without trial” and “mass forced displacement, including attempts at ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza and making the latter an official war goal.”
It accused Israeli authorities of carrying out an “assault on Palestinian identity through the deliberate destruction of refugee camps and attempts to undermine the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).”
The report points to the 1948 UN definition of genocide as “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group,” and points to both evidence on the ground in Gaza as well as statements made by Israeli officials to back up its findings that a genocide is being carried out in Gaza.
The group added that “both morally and legally, genocide cannot be justified under any circumstance, including as an act of self-defense.”
The report ends with a call to action from both Israeli civil society and the international community to “use…every means available under international law to stop Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.”
PHRI also released its report on Monday when it presented “this health-focused legal analysis of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since October 2023, concluding that it constitutes genocide under the 1948 Genocide Convention.”
“The evidence shows a deliberate and systematic dismantling of Gaza’s health and life-sustaining systems — through targeted attacks on hospitals, obstruction of medical aid and evacuations, and the killing and detention of healthcare,” the NGO said.
Israel has dismissed accusations that its forces are committing genocide and other rights abuses in the Gaza Strip, saying its primary war aim is to eliminate the Hamas militant group.
