The Israeli military killed at least 39 Palestinians in strikes across Gaza, medics said on Thursday, including at least 20 people killed in an attack that set ablaze tents sheltering displaced families in a camp.
Israeli strikes also hit a hospital in the north, killing a 16-year-old boy who used a wheelchair, among others, according to the hospital’s director. Strikes were also reported in Gaza City, medics said.
And in Rafah, near Egypt, an Israeli strike killed three Palestinians on Thursday, medics said. Three others were killed in a strike on the eastern city of Shejaia, the medics said.
The strikes came as Amnesty International, in a report released Thursday, accused Israel of committing genocide in the territory.
The London-based group concluded that Israel and its military have violated the 1948 U.N.-backed Genocide Convention, which defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
The nearly 300-page report covered a nine-month period beginning in the aftermath of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and led to capture of about 250 hostages. Israel has since carried out a massive ground and aerial campaign on the Palestinian enclave. There are still about 100 hostages held in Gaza, with about one-third believed to be dead.
Israel said the report was “entirely false and based on lies” and denounced Amnesty International as a “deplorable and fanatical organization.”
Amnesty International said it came to its conclusion based on hundreds of “dehumanizing and genocidal statements” by Israeli officials, as well as ground reports from Gaza. The report said 15 Israeli airstrikes carried out from October 2023 through April 2024 killed 334 civilians, including 141 children. Amnesty said there was no evidence that any of the strikes were directed at military objectives.
The group said Israel’s actions, including mass evacuation orders that have displaced most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, and the restriction of humanitarian aid deliveries are deliberately bringing about the destruction of the Palestinians through a “slow, calculated death.”
The U.S., Israel’s main arms supplier, said it disagreed with the Amnesty International conclusions, with the State Department adding, “We have said previously and continue to find that the allegations of genocide are unfounded.”
Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, said in the report that the group’s findings “must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide.” Callamard said the United States and other nations that provide Israel with weapons are at risk of being complicit with genocide.
In a statement posted on the social media platform X, Israel’s Foreign Ministry slammed the report as “fabricated” and said that it was Hamas that carried out a “genocidal massacre” on October 7. The statement said that since then, Israel has been defending itself against “daily attacks from seven different fronts” while “fully in accordance with international law.”
The Washington Post said it had received a statement from the Israeli military saying Amnesty’s “allegations of genocide and intentional harm are not only unfounded but also ignore Hamas’ violations of international law, including its use of civilians as human shields and its deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians.”
Amnesty’s branch in Israel also disputed the accusations levied by its parent group, saying there was no solid evidence of genocide taking place.
The Israeli office said it did not take part in the research for the report, but also said an investigation needed to be conducted into possible crimes against humanity committed by Israel.
Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 44,500 Palestinians, with more than half of those women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry. Israel says that the death toll includes thousands of militants it has killed.
Israel says the Hamas militants frequently use residential buildings, schools and hospitals for operational cover. Hamas denies this, accusing Israeli forces of indiscriminate attacks.
Amnesty’s report joins a growing chorus of voices across the international community accusing Israel of human rights violations in its war on Gaza. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last month for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including starvation as a method of warfare.
South Africa has brought charges of genocide against Israel in the U.N.-backed International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that while fighting was raging in Gaza, the fragile Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire in Lebanon was “holding,” even as the warring parties have continued to periodically target each other with new strikes in recent days.
Israel and Hezbollah have accused each other of violating the week-old truce aimed at ending 14 months of fighting that has killed thousands of people in Lebanon and sparked mass displacement of residents on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanon border.
Israel stepped up its campaign against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in late September after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas, following the Palestinian group’s October 2023 attack on Israel.
Hamas and Hezbollah have been designated as terror groups by the United States, United Kingdom and other Western countries.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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