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An upcoming Amnesty International report that claims to have evidence that Israel is “committing genocide” in Gaza has been labelled “baseless” and a “gross distortion”.
The report, titled “’You feel like you are subhuman’: Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza” accuses Israel of carrying out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention “with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza”. It is due to be released tomorrow.
It comes after Prime Minister Keir Starmer firmly rejected calls to describe Israel’s military action against Hamas in Gaza as genocide at a Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) in November.
In response to allegations about Israel’s conduct made by Independent MP Perry Bar Ayoub Khan, Starmer said: “It would be wise to start a question like that by reference to what happened in October of last year.”
He went on: “I'm well aware of the definition of genocide, and that is why I've never referred to it as genocide.”
Leading human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky has called the report the “latest assault” by Amnesty against Israel, which it accused in 2022 of operating an “apartheid regime” against Palestinians, an allegation that was rejected by its own officials on the ground.
“This report, written under the guise of ‘international law and human rights’, is utterly baseless and replete with malicious lies, gross distortions of truth and fabrications of law,” said Ostrovsky, CEO of The International Legal Forum.
“To accuse Israel of ‘genocide’ in Gaza is a gross and egregious subversion and weaponisation of the very term itself, made even more unconscionable given the October 7 attacks were the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
“This report, which also entirely absolves and whitewashes the heinous actions of Hamas, while abandoning the fate of the remaining hostages still in their captivity, is nothing short of a blood libel against the Jewish state.”
Jonathan Turner, Chief Executive of UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), also expressed outrage, telling the JC: “Amnesty International has an extensive history of producing false reports”.
He highlighted how Amnesty’s press release for its investigation relies on causality figures produced by Hamas “as if they are reliable, despite analysis by statisticians and other evidence showing fabrication”.
He added: “They do not mention that nearly half of the Palestinian casualties are combatants. They do not observe that the ratio of Palestinian civilians to combatants killed is much lower than normal in urban warfare worldwide, despite the enormous difficulties caused for the IDF by Hamas and other terrorists being embedded in, around and underneath densely populated urban areas.”
According to Turner, reports from Amnesty should not be given credibility, considering what he considers the NGO’s anti-Israel stance.
“Reports from Amnesty International should be given no more credibility than the mediaeval blood libels that Jews poisoned wells and killed Christian children to make unleavened bread for Passover,” he said.
“In the short term, these false allegations will endanger Jewish people. In the long term, it is those propagating and circulating them who will end up in the dustbin of history.”
Reacting to the report, Lord Leigh of Hurley told the JC: “Amnesty International has a long history of attacking Israel and clearly doesn't understand what genocide really is. There is no evidence of a single civilian being targeted.”
He added that the NGO does not seem to be concerned about the “calls for genocide by those chanting ‘From the River to the Sea’”.
In a JC investigation from 2022, it was revealed that Amnesty’s own staff had condemned its incendiary report issued that year accusing Israel of “apartheid”.
Social media posts from the NGO’s employees in Israel reveal that they judged the dossier to be “problematic” and “flawed”, while former Conservative MP Theresa Villiers accused the NGO of “peddling lies” by using the “apartheid slur” to raise money.
Amnesty says it conducted its investigation over nine months, from October 7 2024 to July 2024. It claims to have gathered evidence through conducting interviews, fieldwork, analysing satellite imagery and the statements of Israeli officials.
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