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‘MOST THOROUGH LEGAL ANALYSIS’ YET CONCLUDES ISRAEL COMMITTING
GENOCIDE IN GAZA  
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Jessica Corbett
May 15, 2024
Common Dreams
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_ The University Network for Human Rights report also stresses that
other nations are legally obligated to "refrain from recognizing
Israel's breaches as legal or taking any actions that may amount to
complicity." _

A woman at a grave at the Rafah camp in the southern Gaza Strip on
April 10, the first day of Eid al-Fitr., Haitham Imad/European
Pressphoto Agency

 

The University Network for Human Rights on Wednesday released and sent
to United Nations offices a 105-page report
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it called
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most thorough legal analysis" yet to find "Israel
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against Palestinians in the Gaza
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The network partnered with the International Human Rights Clinic at
Boston University School of Law, the International Human Rights Clinic
at Cornell Law School, the Center for Human Rights at the University
of Pretoria, and the Lowenstein Human Rights Project at Yale Law
School for the analysis, which draws from "a diverse range of credible
sources" and the territory's history.

"After reviewing the facts established by independent human rights
monitors, journalists, and United Nations agencies, we conclude that
Israel's actions in and regarding Gaza since October 7, 2023, violate
the Genocide Convention," the report states. "Israel has committed
genocidal acts of killing, causing serious harm to, and inflicting
conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction
of Palestinians in Gaza, a protected group that forms a substantial
part of the Palestinian people."

As of May 1, Israel's assault had killed "more than 5% of Gaza's
population, with over 2% of Gaza's children killed or injured," the
analysis notes. In recent days, Israeli forces have ramped up their
attack on Rafah—where over a million people from other parts of the
besieged enclave sought refuge—and the total death toll has risen
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35,233, according to Gaza health officials, with another 79,141
Palestinians injured.

"Israel's military operation has destroyed up to 70% of homes in Gaza,
and has decimated civilian infrastructure, including hospitals,
schools, universities, U.N. facilities, and cultural and religious
heritage sites," the document says, noting the "staggering" number of
forced displacements. "Civilians in Gaza face catastrophic levels of
hunger and deprivation due to Israel's restriction on, and failure to
ensure adequate access to, basic essentials of life, including food,
water, medicine, and fuel."

"Israel's genocidal acts in Gaza have been motivated by the requisite
genocidal intent, as evidenced in this report by the statements of
Israeli leaders, the character of the state and its military forces'
conduct against and relating to Palestinians in Gaza, and the direct
nexus between them," the publication continues, pointing to comments
from "officials at all levels of Israeli government, up to and
including" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israel has faced mounting allegations of genocide since launching its
retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7 attack—including an ongoing
South Africa-led case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ),
which found
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January that the country is "plausibly" committing genocide.

Bolstering the ICJ's conclusion, the Wednesday report declares that
"Israel's violations of the international legal prohibition of
genocide amount to grave breaches of peremptory norms of international
law that must cease immediately."

"These violations give rise to obligations by all other states: to
refrain from recognizing Israel’s breaches as legal or taking any
actions that may amount to complicity in these breaches; and to take
positive steps to suppress, prevent, and punish the commission by
Israel of further genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in
Gaza," the document adds.

The United States has long provided Israel with billions of dollars in
military aid and diplomatic support—which have soared since October
7, despite growing pressure on U.S. President Joe Biden to cut off
such assistance. The Democrat has incrementally increased his
criticism of the Israeli assault in recent weeks, angering
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leaders in both countries.

The new legal analysis—which was sent to the U.N.'s Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights, Office on Genocide Prevention and
the Responsibility to Protect, and the Independent International
Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including
East Jerusalem, and Israel—came on the same day that 20 human rights
groups issued
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joint statement.

The rights organizations—including Amnesty International
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and Oxfam—called on world leaders "to urgently act in bringing to an
end, and pursue accountability for," Israel's grave breaches of
international humanitarian law in Gaza.

Both documents were released on Nakba Day, which commemorates the
ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians during the
creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Some experts and
campaigners contend
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the Nakba—Arabic for catastrophe—continues today.

_Jessica Corbett is a senior editor and staff writer for Common
Dreams._

* Israel-Gaza War
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* Genocide
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* Legal Analysis
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