Is What's Happening in Gaza a Genocide? Experts Weigh In [View all]

[David__77]

More than 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, after a deadly Hamas attack prompted Israel to declare war and begin a military offensive along the densely-populated strip of land more than 2 million people call home.

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Raz Segal, the program director of genocide studies at Stockton University, concretely says it is a “textbook case of genocide.” Segal believes that Israeli forces are completing three genocidal acts, including, “killing, causing serious bodily harm, and measures calculated to bring about the destruction of the group.” He points to the mass levels of destruction and total siege of basic necessities—like water, food, fuel, and medical supplies—as evidence.
He says Israeli leaders expressed “explicit, clear, and direct statements of intent,” pointing to Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s statement during an Oct. 13 press conference. In his statement, Herzog said, “It’s an entire nation that is out there that’s responsible. It’s not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true,” Herzog said. “They could have risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d'etat.” (Herzog later said that he is not holding the civilians of Gaza responsible for keeping Hamas in political power, when asked to clarify by a journalist at the same press conference.) Segal says that this language conflates all Palestinians as “an enemy population,” which could help prove intent.

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David Simon, director of the genocide studies program at Yale University, says that Israel has only explicitly said they want to exterminate Hamas, and has not directly stated intent to “destroy a religious, ethnic or racial group.” Simon says it's possible a court could conclude that either Hamas or some elements of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) could be found guilty of committing an act of genocide, but “it's certainly not textbook in that connecting the intent to destroy ethnic group as such is difficult.”

https://time.com/6334409/is-whats-happening-gaza-genocide-experts/