Two human rights groups in Israel accuse their country of genocide in Gaza
The Palestinians, their supporters and international human rights groups make that claim, and the International Court of Justice is hearing a genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel.
But in Israel, founded in the wake of the Holocaust, even the government's strongest critics have largely refrained from making such accusations.
That is because of the deep sensitivities and strong memories of the Nazi genocide of Europe's Jews, and because many in Israel view the war in Gaza as a justified response to the deadliest attack in the country's history and not an attempt at extermination.
The rights groups, while prominent and respected internationally, are considered in Israel to be on the political fringe, and their views are not representative of the vast majority of Israelis.
But having the allegation of genocide come from Israeli voices shatters a taboo in a society that has been reticent to criticise Israel's conduct in Gaza.
Guy Shalev, director of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, said the Jewish-Israeli public often dismisses accusations of genocide as antisemitic or biased against Israel.
'Perhaps human rights groups based in Israel ... coming to this conclusion is a way to confront that accusation and get people to acknowledge the reality,' he said.
Israel asserts that it is fighting an existential war and abides by international law. It has rejected genocide allegations as antisemitic.
It is challenging such allegations at the International Court of Justice, and it has rejected the International Criminal Court's allegations that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant committed war crimes in Gaza. Both face international arrest warrants.
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Irish Times
34 minutes ago
- Irish Times
‘Revenge is not a policy': dissenting Israeli voices begin to penetrate silence over Gaza
Abhorrence of Israel' s devastating war in Gaza has resonated for months in capitals and in university campuses abroad. Now a growing number of Israelis are speaking out against what they describe as atrocities carried out in their name in the Palestinian enclave. Israeli protesters are holding aloft portraits of Palestinian children killed in Gaza. Academics and authors, politicians and retired military leaders are accusing the Israeli government of indiscriminate killing and war crimes. In the early months of the war, the vast majority of Israelis considered the offensive a just and necessary response to the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7th, 2023, even if they were sceptical that the government's long-term goal of eliminating Hamas was attainable, opinion polls showed. Despite that, a majority of Israelis have long wanted a deal that would end the war in exchange for the release of all hostages still held in Gaza and relieve soldiers exhausted by months of deadly conflict, according to the polls. [ 'People think there are hostages - it is what it is'. But families cannot carry on with their lives Opens in new window ] But in recent months, a small but increasingly vocal minority has made anguished calls to end the war on moral grounds, even if many Israelis aren't aware that such protests are happening. Many of the protesters may have supported Israel's right to self-defence after the Hamas attack, but many now say it has gone way too far and contravenes their values. Tamar Parush, an Israeli lecturer in sociology, during an anti-war protest at the Shaar Hanegev junction near the Gaza border in May. Photograph: Amit Elkayam/New York Times 'We are on the edge of the abyss,' Tamar Parush (56), a lecturer in sociology at Sapir College in southern Israel, said at a recent anti-war protest attended by hundreds of Israelis at the busy Shaar Hanegev junction near the border with Gaza. 'Revenge is not a policy,' she said. 'We could have fought a smarter war.' At first, such voices of internal dissent were raised only on the fringes of Israeli society. About 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed by Palestinian assailants during the October attack, making it the deadliest day in Israel's history, and about 250 others were taken hostage. Many Israelis held Hamas solely responsible for the subsequent suffering in Gaza and said they felt little sympathy for civilians there. About 60,000 Palestinians have since been killed in the war, according to Gaza health officials, whose tally does not distinguish between combatants and civilians, but includes more than 10,000 children. The war has displaced most of the two million residents of Gaza several times and brought the territory to the brink of famine. More than 80 children have died from starvation and malnutrition, according to the Gaza health ministry. [ From a viewing platform in Israel, observers watch Gaza's destruction through binoculars Opens in new window ] Despite the desperate humanitarian crisis, a survey conducted in May by the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University found that 64.5 per cent of the Israeli public was not at all, or not very, concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. About three-quarters of Israeli Jews thought Israel's military planning should not take into account the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, or should do so only minimally, according to another recent survey by the Israel Democracy Institute, a nonpartisan research group in Jerusalem. But the institute said that over time it had found a slight increase in the share of Israeli Jews who thought the suffering should be taken into account to a large extent, and a mirroring moderate decline in those who said they were unconcerned. That increase is reflected in the growing discomfort and activism in Israel's liberal camp. 'There has been a discernible shift in the discourse,' said Lee Mordechai, a historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who has been documenting the war and believes that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza – an accusation vehemently rejected by the Israeli government. 'There is still a crisis in the peace camp over what can and can't be said, but people are speaking out more,' he added. Students at Tel Aviv University hold images of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and children killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, in May. Photograph: Amit Elkayam/New York Times He was speaking at the Hebrew University campus in late May, where dozens of students and faculty members held a half-hour silent vigil carrying portraits of children killed in Gaza. Simultaneous protests were taking place at Tel Aviv University and other campuses. Some prominent Israelis have also raised alarms. Ehud Olmert, a former prime minister, decried what he called the 'cruel and criminal killing of civilians' and the starvation of Gaza as a government policy. Moshe Yaalon, a former military chief and defence minister, has warned for months of ethnic cleansing. Yair Golan, a former deputy chief of the military and leader of the Democrats, a left-leaning opposition party, caused a furore when he said the government was killing babies 'as a hobby'. The Israeli government denies committing war crimes in Gaza, though the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant. Israel's military insists that it acts in line with international law, saying it takes steps to minimise civilian casualties and is fighting a complex campaign against an enemy that hides among the population and exploits civilian infrastructure. One inflection point came about a year into the war, Mordechai said, when reports emerged of an Israeli plan to move all the residents of northern Gaza to the south. The government did not officially adopt the plan, proposed by commanders in the reserves, but critics said that elements of it were quietly under way. [ I showed my friends in Israel this photo of a starving baby in Gaza and asked them if they knew Opens in new window ] Then this year, in mid-March, Israel ended a two-month ceasefire and resumed fighting in a decision that many Israelis believed was primarily politically motivated, to help Netanyahu keep his far-right coalition partners from bringing down his government. A New York Times investigation found that Netanyahu had acted to prolong and expand the war, allowing Israel to defeat and weaken more of its enemies but also deferring an internal political reckoning. Hundreds of reservists and retired officers in Israel's air force signed an open letter in April urging the Israeli government to agree to a deal with Hamas to return hostages. 'The continuation of the war doesn't advance any of the declared goals of the war, and will bring about the deaths of the hostages, of IDF soldiers and innocent civilians,' the letter stated, using an abbreviation to refer to the Israeli military. Hundreds of Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza. About 140,000 Israelis from various professional fields have signed similar letters, according to Standing Together, a grassroots organisation of Jewish and Arab Israelis that has spearheaded anti-war protests and advocates peace and equality. The mainstream domestic news media has rarely provided vivid coverage of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza Thousands of Israelis packed the main conference centre in Jerusalem in May for a 'People's Peace Summit' organised by a coalition of more than 50 local peace and social justice organisations. It began with a minute's silence for all the victims of the war – Palestinians and Israelis, civilians and soldiers. Since then more than 1,300 university faculty members have signed an open letter decrying what they called a 'horrible litany of war crimes and even crimes against humanity, all of our own doing'. 'We have been silent for too long,' the letter stated, adding, 'It is our duty to stop the slaughter.' Bestselling Israeli authors David Grossman, Zeruya Shalev and Dorit Rabinyan were among scores of writers who signed another letter expressing 'shock' over Israel's actions in Gaza. In the days after the October 2023 attack, Rabinyan had said that her compassion for the suffering on the other side was 'paralysed'. The mainstream domestic news media has rarely provided vivid coverage of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. While the left-wing Haaretz newspaper has covered the suffering, a popular right-wing television station, Channel 14, regularly provides a platform for people calling for even harsher action against Gaza's civilians. In July, Standing Together activists have been demonstrating outside the studios of the main Israeli television channels to press local journalists to report on the dire hunger situation in Gaza. 'People debate starving or deporting Gaza's residents on television as if these are legitimate options,' says Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer. 'But a different voice is trying to penetrate the almost unified public discourse,' he added. Criticising soldiers' conduct is a sensitive matter in a country where most Jewish 18-year-olds are conscripted and many Israelis are loath to accuse an army made up of their own relatives or friends of war crimes. Itamar Avneri, a Tel Aviv City Council member and a founder of Standing Together, said for that reason the group was careful to criticise the government, not the soldiers. 'This is a war of destruction,' he said at the protest near the Gaza border. 'The Gazans are our neighbours.' – This article originally appeared in The New York Times 2025 The New York Times Company
The Journal
4 hours ago
- The Journal
Israeli settler kills Palestinian teacher and activist linked to Oscar-Winning film in West Bank
ODEH HADALIN, A Palestinian teacher who was part of the crew on the Academy Award-winning documentary No Other Land, was shot dead by an Israeli settler on Monday, the film's co-directors have said. Hadalin was an activist from Masafer Yatta, a collection of hamlets located on the hills south of Hebron, which have been declared a military zone by Israel. Hadalin and other activists' efforts to prevent Israeli forces and settlers from destroying their homes was the subject of the 2024 documentary No Other Land, which won Best Documentary at the Oscars in March. He was a teaching staff member at al-Saray'a Secondary School in Masafer Yatta, and was a father of three children, the eldest of whom is 6 years old. The 31-year-old 'was shot dead by settlers… during their attack on the village of Umm al-Khair' near Hebron, the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Education wrote on social media late on Monday. No Other Land co-director Yuval Abraham confirmed the news in a post online, stating: 'An Israeli settler just shot Odeh Hadalin in the lungs.' Abraham described Hadalin as 'a remarkable activist who helped us film No Other Land'. Palestinian journalist and activist Mohammad Hesham Huraini said that Hadalin 'has now been made martyr by the hands of a violent settler.' The attacker was identified by Israeli and Palestinian journalists as Yinon Levi, an extremist settler formerly sanctioned by the US under the Biden administration, and still sanctioned by Canada, the UK, and the European Union. In video footage from the scene of the confrontation, Levi can be seen holding a handgun and firing into the air. A bulldozer is visible in the frame behind him. Advertisement An Israeli settler just shot Odeh Hadalin in the lungs, a remarkable activist who helped us film No Other Land in Masafer Yatta. Residents identified Yinon Levi, sanctioned by the EU and US, as the shooter. This is him in the video firing like crazy. — Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) July 28, 2025 Huraini said that shortly after the fatal shooting, another man tried to block the bulldozer before Levi 'ran him over' and injured him. He added that several Palestinians were then taken by Israeli police 'under false arrest charges'. In a statement, Israeli police said they were investigating the incident, and that an Israeli citizen involved in the shooting had been detained at the scene and later arrested. The police did not identify the detained Israeli, although Haaretz reported that it was Levi. Four Palestinians were also detained by the Israel Defense Forces, as well as two foreign tourists, police said. Israeli news site Ynet reported that Levi was in the area carrying out construction on a new neighborhood in Carmel, and in Levi's account of the incident, he alleged that dozens of rioters from nearby Umm al-Khair threw stones at him and several other Israelis. He claimed that he opened fire on the Palestinians because he felt his life was in danger, Ynet reported. These circumstances were disputed by locals, Palestinian news sources and Haaretz, which reported that Levi's bulldozer had encroached on privately owned land of Umm al-Khair. Need more information on what is happening in Israel and Palestine? Check out our FactCheck Knowledge Bank for essential reads and guides to navigating the news online. Visit Knowledge Bank Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
RTÉ News
6 hours ago
- RTÉ News
The latest developments in the Israel-Gaza conflict
Linda Gradstein, Correspondent for CBS Radio based in Jerusalem, discuses the latest developments in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
