Ayman Mohyeldin - Why Amnesty International and other experts say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza

The organization's new report adds to a growing consensus among some experts about what has happened in Gaza over the last 14 months.

Dec. 10, 2024, 10:20 AM EST
By Ayman Mohyeldin

This is an adapted excerpt from the Dec. 7 episode of “Ayman.”

On Thursday, Amnesty International, the world’s largest and most storied humanitarian organization, released a 297-page study titled “‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza.” The key word there is “genocide.”

n the 14 months since Israeli officials, like former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, declared that no food, water, electricity or fuel would be allowed in the Gaza Strip — a remark made two days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel — that charge of genocide has been made against and fiercely denied by Israel and its supporters, including the United States.

Back in January, the International Court of Justice ruled that it was plausible that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. Last month, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Gallant for war crimes, marking the first time the ICC has done so against a Western ally of the United States.

One of the legal scholars who advocated for these charges against Israeli leaders was Theodor Meron, a man who oversaw the world’s first genocide trials. Meron was once an Israeli diplomat, then an American judge, and was himself a survivor of the Nazi genocide of Jews.

Likewise, Aryeh Neier, founder of Human Rights Watch and one of the leading human rights experts in the world — also a Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany — told me back in June that, in his view, what Israel was doing in Gaza is a genocide.

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