Yes, it is genocide.
Evidence of genocide, including from the genocidal horse's mouth.
Lara Elbarno, lawyer and activist, in an interview with Frank Barat
“Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians and it’s not just my opinion, it’s the opinion of the scholars of genocide and state crime who, at various moments in this current crisis have come out and said very clearly that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians.
There have been numerous legal scholars, like the Center for Constitutional Rights who have issued legal opinions on this and are saying the same thing. Craig Mokhiber’s resignation letter from the UN referred to this as a ‘text-book case of genocide’. Raz Segal came out very early in the massacre to refer to this also as a ‘textbook case of genocide’ and he’s a Jewish genocide scholar.
You had over 800 genocide scholars pen a letter saying the exact same thing. You had 47 state crime scholars come out and say Israel is practicing the ‘annihilation phase of genocide’ against Palestinians. The legal and scholarly consensus is very much that Israel is practicing genocide and genocide, we know, is a legal definition under two international treaties and it’s clearly defined, and if we apply what is happening right now and assess whether or not it meets the legal threshold, it certainly does.
As you said, we’ve seen dozens and dozens and dozens of statements of genocidal intent at the highest levels of Israel’s military and government and we’ve also seen multiple genocidal acts. The deprivation of food and water alone to an entire people who are caged, who have no other way of getting food and water, even if Israel didn’t drop a single airstrike on Gaza, that policy alone is genocidal. They’re starving people to death, and in fact people have already starved to death, they have already been dehydrated to death. It was the director of Al-Shifa hospital who said in a statement that people were ‘screaming from thirst’. The UN World Food Programme also warned of an ‘immediate possibility of starvation’. That’s a genocidal act - leaving aside the indiscriminate uninterrupted bombardment that has pulverised Gaza, that has destroyed half the buildings in Gaza. Leaving that completely aside.
So Israel has committed multiple genocidal acts with the requisite genocidal intent and that’s all you need to make a showing of genocide. I think part of the reluctance to label it as such comes from people in the public discourse who are getting their information from pundits - who don’t even know what genocide - is they don’t realise that it’s a legal definition, they think it’s an opinion they can have, and then they spout that misinformation. So when I heard Piers Morgan talk about how he didn’t think Israel was committing genocide, I said you should leave it to the scholars because you don’t know what genocide is in order for you to even have an opinion on this. It’s like having an opinion if a specific surgery is required on an individual and you’re not a physician; you’re not entitled to have that opinion so you shouldn’t talk about it, you should bring a scholar on to discuss it.
The legal analysis points clearly to genocide. I’m a lawyer, I look at the treaties and I look at the texts and I apply the law to the facts and when you do that you can only reach one conclusion and that is that Israel is committing genocide in this moment. The point is not to just say that Israel is committing genocide - of course it is - but what is all of this a part of? This genocide is the latest form of colonial domination and oppression that Israel is exercising against a people that it has been ethnically cleansing from their homes for over 75 years. It’s the latest tool of oppression and that’s what we really need to be talking about.”
Updates:
International Court of Justice: A plausible case of genocide.
Human Rights Watch: Israel’s Crime of Extermination, Acts of Genocide in Gaza
Dutch Study, May 2025 - Seven Genocide Scholars: Israel is committing genocide (two from Israel, two Australian, one Brit, one Australian, one Dutch and one Croatian).
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Israeli politicians comments in May 2025:
Yair Golan called Israel a pariah state and is “killing babies as a hobby.”
Moshe Feiglin responds, saying, “Every child in Gaza is the enemy.”
Former prime minister Ehud Olmert in Haaretz said: “What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians. We're not doing this due to loss of control in any specific sector, not due to some disproportionate outburst by some soldiers in some unit. Rather, it's the result of government policy – knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated. Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.”
500+ statements of Israeli incitement to genocide.
Thank you for this valuable summary!