Gaza genocide
The Gaza genocide is the ongoing, intentional, and systematic destruction of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip carried out by Israel during the Gaza war. It encompasses mass killings, deliberate starvation, infliction of serious bodily and mental harm, and prevention of births. Other acts include blockading, destroying civilian infrastructure, destroying healthcare facilities, killing healthcare workers and aid-seekers, causing mass forced displacement, committing sexual violence, and destroying educational, religious, and cultural sites. The genocide has been recognised by a United Nations special committee and commission of inquiry, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, multiple human rights groups, numerous genocide studies and international law scholars, and other experts.
As of December 2025, at least 70,117 people in Gaza had been killed. The vast majority of the victims were civilians, and around 50% were women and children. Compared to other recent global conflicts, the numbers of known deaths of journalists, humanitarian and health workers, and children are among the highest. Thousands more uncounted bodies are thought to be under the rubble of destroyed buildings. A study in the medical journal The Lancet estimated that traumatic injury deaths were undercounted by June 2024, while noting an even larger potential death toll when "indirect" deaths are included. The number of injured is greater than 171,000. Gaza has the most child amputees per capita in the world; the Gaza war caused more than 21,000 children to be disabled.
An Israeli blockade heavily contributed to starvation and confirmed famine. As of August 2025, projections show about 641,000 people experiencing catastrophic levels and that "the number of people facing emergency levels will likely increase to 1.14 million". Early in the conflict, Israel cut off Gaza's water and electricity, but it later partially restored the water. As of May 2024, 84% of Gaza's health centres have been destroyed or damaged. Israel also destroyed numerous cultural heritage sites, including all 12 of Gaza's universities, and 80% of its schools. Over 1.9 million Palestinians—85% of Gaza's population—were forcibly displaced. Israel's bombing also caused severe environmental devastation across the territory.
In December 2023, the government of South Africa instituted proceedings, South Africa v. Israel, against Israel at the International Court of Justice, alleging a violation of the Genocide Convention. In January 2024, the court ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of acts of genocide, to prevent and punish incitement to genocide, and to allow basic humanitarian service, aid and supplies into Gaza. The court later ordered Israel to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza and to halt its Rafah offensive. Israel did not fully comply with the court's orders.
Israel and its supporters maintain that its actions do not constitute genocide, that they are a response to the October 7 attacks, and that Israel's aim has been to destroy Hamas and free Israeli hostages. There is increasing consensus among genocide and international legal scholars on the genocide assessment, though some academics challenge it.
Background
Israel's occupation of the Gaza Strip began in the 1967 Arab–Israeli War. In 2005, Israel withdrew its ground forces in the context of the Oslo Accords and the Second Intifada. The International Court of Justice subsequently issued an advisory opinion that despite the withdrawal Israel is still illegally occupying the Gaza Strip.Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been governed by Hamas, an Islamist militant group, while the West Bank remained under the control of the Palestinian Authority. After Hamas took over, Israel intensified its blockade of the Gaza Strip, citing security concerns; international rights groups have called the blockade a form of collective punishment. UNRWA reported that, due to the blockade, 81% of Gazans were living below the poverty level in 2023, with 63% food insecure and dependent on international assistance. Since 2007, Israel and Hamas have engaged in conflict, including four wars in 2008–2009, 2012, 2014, and 2021.
On 7 October 2023 Hamas led an attack into Israel from Gaza, killing at least 1,139 people, most of them civilians. The attack included grave acts of violence, including sexual violence. During the attack, Palestinian militant groups abducted 251 people from Israel to the Gaza Strip. Israel responded with a highly destructive bombing campaign followed by an invasion of the Gaza Strip on 27 October.
Hamas officials said the attack was a response to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the blockade of Gaza, Israeli settler violence against Palestinians, restrictions on the movement of Palestinians, and the detainment of thousands of Palestinians, many without charges, whom Hamas sought to release by taking Israeli hostages. Numerous commentators have identified Israeli occupation as a cause of the war. Several human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, B'Tselem, and Human Rights Watch, have likened the Israeli occupation to apartheid; Israel's supporters dispute this characterisation. A July 2024 advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice affirmed the occupation as illegal and said it violated the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
During the first 48 hours of Israel's retaliatory attack, IDF chief Herzi Halevi reported that the IDF attacked 1,000 targets. According to his wife, he told her that "Gaza will be destroyed". Reportedly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu subsequently said he wanted 5,000 targets to be attacked, even though the IDF had not confirmed 5,000 enemy targets. Artificial intelligence was used to generate a list of targets, in many cases based on unconfirmed or outdated intelligence. About 10,000 Palestinians were killed in a month, including entire families. Shmuel Lederman called this "as criminal as it gets".
The Israeli government has said that the military actions it has undertaken are in response to the October 7 attacks and sought to destroy Hamas, overthrow its governance of the Gaza Strip, and free Israeli hostages. It has denied that its military operations constitute genocide. Multiple commentators argue that part of the motive is retaliation for the 7 October attacks. Nimer Sultany argues that anti-Palestinianism is also a motive.
Definitions of genocide and legal challenges
The 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention defines genocide as acts committed "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group", and as such, "causing harm, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children". The International Court of Justice has never held a state liable for genocide. The legal threshold for genocidal intent remains a major barrier to prosecution.The original definition coined by Raphael Lemkin was broader than that used by the Genocide Convention and included cultural and social destruction. In contrast, orthodox scholarly definitions emphasise actions targeting a group's physical survival. No minimum number of victims or intended victims is required to establish the crime, nor is complete destruction of the group. In the Rohingya genocide case, several states contended that the ICJ should "adopt a balanced approach that recognizes the special gravity of the crime of genocide, without rendering the threshold for inferring genocidal intent so difficult to meet so as to make findings of genocide near-impossible."
Genocidal intent and incitement
Experts affirm that statements by Israeli political and military leaders—coupled with eliminationist media rhetoric and Israel's conduct in Gaza—indicate genocidal intent and incitement against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Israeli officials and journalists have made verbal statements that dehumanise Palestinians and incite, justify, or praise atrocities against them as a group. Genocidal intent is also evidenced by the scale and systematic nature of actions that exceed any legitimate military objective—including the extensive targeting of children, widespread sexual violence, destruction of cultural heritage, and imposition of life-destroying conditions—together with the persistence of these practices despite awareness of their catastrophic effects.Both a United Nations commission of inquiry and Amnesty International documented a "pattern of conduct" by Israeli authorities, concluding that genocidal intent is the "only reasonable inference" that can be drawn from the evidence. Other organisations that have attributed genocidal intent to the actions or statements of Israeli officials include a United Nations panel and Genocide Watch. As part of Defense for Children International – Palestine v. Biden, the historian Barry Trachtenberg said that the rhetoric used by Israeli officials underlies the consensus among genocide historians that the situation in Gaza constitutes genocide. Navi Pillay, the chair of the UN commission of inquiry, compared the statements of Israeli politicians to the genocidal incitement during the Rwandan genocide.
In September 2025, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, president Isaac Herzog, and former defence minister Yoav Gallant were found by a United Nations commission of inquiry to have engaged in "direct and public incitement to commit genocide". Israeli leaders' repeated references to Amalek—the biblical enemy of Israelites whose annihilation is commanded by God—have been considered evidence of genocidal intent by many critics, including South Africa.
Onset
, the South African legal case against Israel, and some scholars who argue Israel is committing genocide argument give 7 October as its start date. According to B'Tselem, "The genocidal assault on the residents of Gaza, and on all Palestinians as a group, cannot be understood without acknowledging the impact of the 7 October attack on Israeli society. The shock, fear and humiliation elicited by the attack, and the societal upheaval it triggered, served as a driving force for a shift in government policy toward the Palestinians—from oppression and control to destruction and annihilation." Martin Shaw and A. Dirk Moses argue that this "front-loaded violence" makes it harder to argue that the genocide began after the initial Israeli attack on Gaza.On 13 October 2023, the historian Raz Segal said Israel was committing a "textbook case of genocide". He was one of the first scholars to do so. Others argue that the war was initially legitimate and the genocide started later, in 2024 or 2025. In September 2024, a UN Special Committee concluded, "the policies and practices of Israel during the reporting period are consistent with the characteristics of genocide."