Gaza: For Israeli humanitarian organizations, it is genocide
By Roberto Cetera, from Jerusalem
The term genocide, whose usage has provoked much controversy when applied to the military operations conducted by the Israeli army in Gaza, is no longer taboo—even within Israel and among Israeli Jews. Yesterday morning, two of the leading Israeli humanitarian and pacifist organizations, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, released to the press a work of meticulous analysis and documentation, the conclusion of which leaves no room for doubt: Israel has developed “a genocidal regime working toward the destruction of Palestinian society in Gaza.”
B’Tselem is a humanitarian organization that has documented human rights violations committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories since 1989, and includes in its work lawyers, journalists, and members of the Israeli parliament.
“This is a very sad moment for us,” stated B’Tselem’s executive director Yuli Novak. “Israelis and Palestinians who live here and witness what is happening every day have a duty to speak the truth as clearly as possible: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians. The extremist far-right government is exploiting the fear generated by the horrific attack of October 7 to advance an agenda of destruction and expulsion of the Palestinian people from Gaza.”
According to Physicians for Human Rights, who have produced a detailed forensic-medical analysis of the situation in the Strip, the Israeli military operations in Gaza meet the definition of genocide as established by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide—a convention to which the State of Israel is also a signatory.
The executive director of the organization, Guy Shalev, stated: “The evidence shows a deliberate and systematic destruction of the healthcare system in Gaza, which includes the bombing and destruction of hospitals, the obstruction of the arrival of medical aid and pharmaceuticals, and the arrest of doctors and nurses. This cannot be defined as anything other than genocide. As medical professionals, and for the sake of our colleagues in Gaza who risk their lives to care for people, we cannot exempt ourselves from the duty to speak the truth.”
Both organizations have also denounced the international community’s underestimation of the severity of the situation.
The characterization of the Israeli military operations in Gaza as genocide has, over the past months, sparked considerable controversy. A similar concern into the matter raised by 杏MAP导航 Francis had already drawn harsh criticism from Israel and from members of Jewish communities in the west.
L’Osservatore Romano, on March 11 of this year, had already addressed the issue by giving voice to members of Israeli civil society. Historian Lee Mordecai, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, did not hesitate, from a legal standpoint, to affirm the reality of an ongoing genocide in Gaza. At the same time, psycholinguist Tsivia Peres Walden, while denouncing the gravity of what had been perpetrated by the Israeli army in Gaza, noted that the use of the term genocide could be divisive and might reinforce a polarized reading of the conflict.
Thank you for reading our article. You can keep up-to-date by subscribing to our daily newsletter. Just click here
