‘The world is witnessing genocide live on screen,’ committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, says Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard in the foreword of the organization's annual report on human rights worldwide, published Tuesday.

‘Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas committed terrible crimes against Israeli citizens and took over 250 people hostage, the world has watched on screen a live genocide. States have watched, as if powerless, as Israel kills thousands of Palestinians, massacring entire families across generations and destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals, and schools,’ she writes.

In the section of the report dedicated to the Middle East, Amnesty reiterates its accusations of ‘genocide,’ previously made at the end of 2024 and categorically rejected by Israeli authorities. ‘Amnesty International's research has shown that Israel has committed acts prohibited by the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian population of Gaza, thereby committing genocide,’ the organization writes. The report specifically cites 'killings,' 'serious physical or mental harm to civilians,' 'forced displacement and disappearances,' and 'the deliberate imposition of living conditions intended to bring about the physical destruction of these people.'

Humanitarian aid blocked

The war in Gaza was triggered by unprecedented Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7, 2023, causing the death of 1,218 individuals on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures. Hamas also kidnapped 251 people that day, of whom 58 are still held in Gaza and 34 are dead, according to the Israeli army.

In retaliation, Israel, which vowed to annihilate the Palestinian movement, has since killed at least 52,243 people in Gaza, again mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory's Health Ministry, considered reliable by the U.N. Amnesty's report also emphasizes that nearly 1.9 million Palestinians, or 90% of Gaza's population, have been displaced since the war began, accusing Israel of ‘deliberately causing an unprecedented humanitarian disaster.’

Israel controls all flows of international aid, vital for the 2.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and completely halted them on March 2, just days before the collapse of a fragile ceasefire.

‘Test for our humanity’

Overnight from Monday to Tuesday, the Palestinian Civil Defense reported four deaths in an Israeli strike on tents of displaced people in the southern Gaza Strip. It specified that, due to a lack of fuel, only four of its 12 vehicles are operational in the southern territory, hindering its operations, and repeated its ‘urgent appeal’ to the U.N. and international organizations to ‘intervene immediately to open the crossing points into Gaza.’In its report, Amnesty criticizes the international community's attitude, which ‘has not taken meaningful steps to end Israel's atrocities in Gaza.’ ‘Major powers, including the U.S. and many Western European countries, have publicly supported Israel's actions, thus undermining the universal value of international law,’ the report highlights, recalling measures taken by international justice institutions.

The International Court of Justice ordered provisional measures against Israel, which it ‘has ignored,’ Amnesty notes, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants in 2024 against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ICC also issued an arrest warrant against Hamas military chief Mohammad Deif, annulled following the recent confirmation of his death in an Israeli strike in July 2024.

‘Gaza is a test for international justice, and a test for our humanity,’ said Heba Morayef, Amnesty's Middle East North Africa director, at a press conference Monday, highlighting the ‘extreme level of suffering’ endured daily by the Palestinians in Gaza.