Amnesty accuses Israel of ‘live-streamed genocide’ in Gaza

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Amnesty International accused Israel on Tuesday of committing a “live-streamed genocide” against Palestinians by forcibly displacing Gazans and creating a humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged territory, claims Israel dismissed as “blatant lies”.

Echoing global concern after more than 18 months of war, the United Nations´ rights chief Volker Turk meanwhile called on the international community to launch “concerted efforts” to end Israel´s total aid blockade on the Gaza Strip, in effect since early March.

Rights group Amnesty, in its annual report, said Israel was acting with “specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide”. The war erupted after Palestinian group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, resulting in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel´s retaliatory military offensive has killed at least 52,365 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

“Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide,” Amnesty´s secretary-general Agnes Callamard said.

“States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools.”

Israel rejected the accusations in Amnesty´s report, accusing the group of spreading Hamas propaganda and insisting that the military did not target civilians.

On the ground, Gaza´s civil defence agency said Israeli strikes on Tuesday killed at least seven people, four of whom in a tent encampment for displaced Palestinians in the territory´s south.

Widad Fojo, who lost relatives in one of the strikes, said he was tired of the violence. “I just want to lay my head on a pillow and sleep. We don´t want to be collecting remains” of the dead, he said.

Amnesty said it had “documented multiple war crimes by Israel” including attacks on civilians, and that Israel had “deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe”. The London-based rights group said 1.9 million people -- about 90 percent of Gaza´s population -- had been forcibly displaced during the war. The UN has cited similar figures.

Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein rejected the accusations, saying that “the radical anti-Israel organisation Amnesty has once again chosen to publish baseless lies against Israel.” “Israel is targeting only terrorists and never civilians,” he said.