The Gaza genocide claim fails the test of law and fact

Israel’s military response to the Hamas invasion of October 7, 2023, has provoked a slew of accusations against the Jewish State. For most of 2024 and 2025, the UN alleged that Gaza’s 2.2 million people were on the “brink” of starvation. The UN and others have accused Israel of deliberately targeting hospitals and schools, even though Hamas uses those areas as military bases. But in recent weeks, the crescendo has peaked with the resurgence of accusations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

South Africa accused Israel at the International Court of Justice early in the war of committing genocide, but the claim has gained currency recently in response to widely distributed photos (some of which are now known to be fake) of allegedly starving Gazans. Even some Jewish writers have “reluctantly” jumped on the genocide bandwagon. But the law of genocide and the facts in Gaza demonstrate that the claim lacks any basis.

The Genocide Convention of 1948 and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court both define genocide as requiring proof of specific intent to “destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such.” Israel’s actions in Gaza do not come close to this definition.

First, there is no evidence that Israel is targeting Gazan Palestinians “as such.” Israel is not acting to destroy anyone in Gaza solely because they are Palestinian. Instead, Israel’s intent is to destroy Hamas, the terrorist organization that invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, and brutally murdered and raped more than 1,200 victims and took 251 others hostage.

Second, even if Israel were targeting Gazan Palestinians “as such,” the Genocide Convention nevertheless requires the destruction be so massive that the Gazan Palestinians will be destroyed “in whole or in part.” But the facts do not support this requirement either.

Approximately 2.2 million people live in Gaza. According to Hamas, approximately 56,000 people have died during the war. Hamas does not distinguish between civilian and military/terrorist casualties, but the Israeli government believes at least 20,000 Hamas members have been killed. Thus, even if one were to take Hamas’s usually grossly inflated claims at face value, at most 36,000, or 1.6% of Gaza’s 2.2 million non-combatant residents have died during the war.

Proponents of the genocide accusation argue the phrase “in whole or in part” is sufficient to sustain the genocide charge against Israel for the 1.6% of Gaza’s deceased population. But that argument ignores a long line of international judicial decisions and the International Law Commission’s interpretation of the words “in part” to mean “at least a substantial part” of the targeted group relative to its total population. While the deaths of 1.6% of Gaza’s population are undeniably tragic, that figure falls well short of constituting a “substantial part” of Gaza’s total population.

Moreover, the international courts have ruled the substantiality requirement means the destruction of part of the group would be sufficiently massive to threaten the overall survival of the rest of the group. There is no evidence of any such threat to the overall population of Gaza.

This interpretation of the words “in part” reflects the understanding of the Genocide Convention’s drafters. Raphael Lemkin, a prominent international lawyer who coined the term “genocide” and was instrumental in drafting the Genocide Convention, explained during the 1950 debate in the United States Senate on the ratification of the Convention that “the destruction in part must be of a substantial nature.” Based on Lemkin’s testimony, Congress defined the term “substantial part” in the legislation adopting the Genocide Convention as “a part of a group of such numerical significance that the destruction or loss of that part would cause the destruction of the group as a viable entity within the nation of which such group is a part.”

Evacuation warnings

Finally, the evidence shows Israel has not acted with the requisite intent to commit genocide. If Israel truly intended to commit genocide, then it would not have issued evacuation warnings to Gazan civilians to get out of harm’s way prior to launching air strikes, as it has done repeatedly since the beginning of the war. Nor would it have allowed thousands of tons of aid into the enclave, as it has done for nearly the entirety of the war. Nor would it have facilitated the administration of polio vaccines to 500,000 Gazans in August 2024. Indeed, no other nation in the history of human warfare has ever warned civilians before launching strikes, delivered tons of aid to the enemy’s population, or vaccinated hundreds of thousands of the enemy’s people during wartime.

Has the population of Gaza suffered? Yes, of course. But as between allegations of Israeli genocide and Hamas’s conduct, the fault lies squarely with Hamas. Hamas started the war when it invaded Israel without provocation on October 7, 2023. Hamas refuses to end the war by continuing to hold captive the remaining Israelis it kidnapped. Indeed, Hamas is holding the entire Gazan population hostage by refusing to surrender, by hijacking food aid, and by shooting at its own people who simply want a chance at a better life.

Is Israel committing genocide in Gaza? The clear answer, both legally and factually, is a resounding no.