Israel did not commit genocide in Gaza.

The Genocide Convention defines the crime as any of five prohibited acts committed with the intent to destroy a protected group: killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, destroying the conditions necessary for life, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children. In Gaza, Israel has committed each of these prohibited acts with genocidal intent. This is why the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found it plausible that Israel's acts could amount to genocide and ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts. UN experts, genocide scholars, and human rights organizations have likewise concluded that Israel is committing genocide. Even Israel's largest human rights organization, B'Tselem, titled its report: "Our Genocide."

In two years of genocide, Israel killed more than 75,00000522-4/fulltext) Palestinians, including over 21,000 children. Yet genocide is defined by the intent to destroy a protected group, not by achieving its complete destruction. Even if zero Palestinians had been killed, the crime of genocide could still be established.

Genocidal intent is often the hardest element to prove because perpetrators rarely express it openly. Israel's leaders, however, scarcely concealed theirs. On the third day of the genocide, "Defense" Minister Yoav Gallant announced a "complete siege" on Gaza, declaring, "There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel... We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly." Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu suggested dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza, while President Isaac Herzog declared that "an entire nation is responsible." Law for Palestine has documented more than 480 statements of Israeli incitement to genocide. These statements formed part of the evidence before the ICJ, which ordered Israel to prevent and punish incitement to genocide.

In just two years, Israel has erased entire families from the civil registry, burned displaced families alive in their tents, left mass graves in hospital grounds, repeatedly shot starving Palestinians seeking food, and made Gaza the deadliest place in modern history for journalists. It has destroyed or damaged 80% of Gaza's buildings, forcibly displaced 2.1 million residents, and deliberately starved the population. Taken together, these acts constitute the systematic destruction of Palestinians and the conditions necessary for their survival.

The genocide in Gaza did not emerge in isolation. It represents the latest and most extreme stage of an eight-decade settler-colonial project characterized by ethnic cleansing, military occupation, siege, apartheid, collective punishment, and repeated mass atrocities. October 2023 marked an escalation in intensity, not the beginning of Israel's destruction of the Palestinian people.

Genocide denial is itself a recurring feature of genocide. The Armenian, Bosnian, and Rwandan genocides were all denied or minimized by perpetrators and their allies as they unfolded. Israel's campaign to obscure, deny, and normalize the genocide in Gaza follows this same pattern. Its purpose is to enable the continued commission of genocide by delaying accountability while preserving international diplomatic, military, and economic support.