A consensus is building. On 5 December, Amnesty International concluded after an investigation that “Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip”. A few days later, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) stated that after research and analysis, it concluded that “there is a legally sound argument that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza”.

A few days after that, Human Rights Watch (HRW) declared that “Israeli authorities are responsible for the crime against humanity of extermination and for acts of genocide”, and Médecins Sans Frontières reported that its medical “teams in the north of Gaza are seeing clear signs of ethnic cleansing”. Earlier in November, HRW also concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity”, and appeared to “also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing”.

Following the issuing of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant by the international criminal court (ICC), also in November, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, all these recent judgments end the year with an emphatic categorization of the assault in Gaza as a violation of international law. They join the International Commission of Jurists and the UN in condemning Israel’s war. The country, and its head of state, are now, according to the courts and human rights organizations that make up the world’s legal and moral authorities, outlaws.