Varje dag en kamp i Gaza: ”Vågar inte gå till min sönderbombade lägenhet”

Over the course of the Gaza war, which began in 2023, the State of Israel has been accused by hundreds of humanitarian and human rights organizations (NGOs, INGOs, and IGOs) of perpetrating a genocide targeting the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. This accusation became more widespread among the international community as formal statements declaring the Gaza genocide to be a fact were increasingly issued by several prominent and reputable organizations around the world upon the conclusion of comprehensive academic and legal investigations on the matter, including: the United Nations (via a special committee and commission of inquiry), the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Genocide Watch, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Médecins Sans Frontières. As a result, many countries have recognized the Gaza genocide, while others have deferred their position on recognition in the ongoing International Court of Justice case brought by South Africa. A number of countries besides Israel have denied the Gaza genocide on various grounds. Throughout 2023 and 2024, humanitarian and human rights groups sometimes implied that Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip may constitute genocide without explicitly accusing Israel of genocide. However, these implications largely shifted to explicit accusations of genocide when International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli leaders were issued in November 2024; Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant have been charged with and are wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly for facilitating starvation as a method of warfare, which caused the Gaza Strip famine. Israel has been characterized as engaging in four of the five acts constituting the crime of genocide under Article 2 of the Genocide Convention of 1948, with the only absent genocidal act being a perpetrator's forcible transfer of children belonging to the targeted group. The most frequent allegation against Israel in this context is that it has "inflicted conditions of life calculated to destroy" Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Specific acts cited by groups charging Israel with the crime of genocide include: practicing collective punishment, particularly by restricting Palestinians' access to basic necessities, such as food, water, fuel, and electricity; destroying medical infrastructure and services, causing the collapse of the Gaza Strip healthcare system; destroying civilian infrastructure, such as schools and cultural heritage sites; engaging in sexual and gender-based violence, especially to destroy Palestinian women; shooting and bombing civilians (extermination), which has disproportionately impacted Palestinian children; and violating various international conventions by engaging in chemical warfare, particularly with white phosphorus munitions. The intensity of Israel's military offensives into the Gaza Strip, particularly that of the bombing campaigns, has been cited as the primary cause of the Gaza Strip humanitarian crisis that has caused Palestinian societal breakdown across the territory. Additional actions commonly cited by groups as proof of Israeli genocidal intent include the use of dehumanizing language for Palestinians; repeated forced displacement of Palestinians; the failure of Israeli soldiers to distinguish between Palestinian combatants and non-combatants in official justifications for relevant incidents; the minimization of the Israeli military's moral and legal obligation as a belligerent force to take any measures necessary to protect all civilians during combat operations; the failure of Israel's government to comply with a January 2024 order by the International Court of Justice to immediately halt military activity in the Gaza Strip, address and prevent or punish genocidal incitement, and lift restrictions on humanitarian aid and services entering the territory; the ignoring or downplaying by Israel's government of humanitarian alerts by the United Nations and other international bodies with regard to mass civilian death in the Gaza Strip; the number of health workers killed; the number of journalists killed; and inflammatory statements by numerous Israeli government and military officials, such as dystopian references to biblical passages and overt declarations of support for actions illegal under international law.