When analyzing the ongoing assault on Gaza, it is imperative to begin not with slogans or opinion, but with the clear and unequivocal framework of international law. The UN Genocide Convention of 1948, to which nearly every nation on Earth is a party—including Israel and the United States—defines genocide as:
“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
The question is not whether the actions in Gaza resemble genocide in a rhetorical sense. The question is whether these actions—mass killing, destruction of infrastructure, deprivation of food, water, and medical care, and dehumanizing language from state officials—fit the legal criteria. The evidence is overwhelming that they do.
Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli military has launched what is effectively a sustained campaign of carpet bombing, leveling entire neighborhoods, obliterating hospitals, schools, water treatment facilities, bakeries, marketplaces, and places of worship. This has continued for 18 months as of April 2025.
A common and deeply misleading counterargument goes something like: “If it were really genocide, they would have just carpet-bombed Gaza in a single day.” This reflects a profound misunderstanding of both genocide and military violence. Genocide does not require suddenness. It does not require millions of deaths. The Rwandan genocide lasted about 100 days. The genocide against Indigenous peoples in North America took centuries. The Nazi genocide began with years of dehumanization, legal exclusion, and forced displacement—long before the death camps.
What matters is intent, and the patterns of behavior over time. Israeli officials have issued dozens of explicit statements expressing genocidal intent—referring to Palestinians as “human animals,” calling for the complete “erasure” of Gaza, and insisting that “no one in Gaza is innocent.” When such rhetoric is followed by mass killing, mass displacement, engineered famine, and the systematic destruction of all life-sustaining infrastructure, the legal and moral implications are undeniable.
Let us also consider the scale: as of early April 2025, over 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of them women and children. Over 115,000 more have been injured. Tens of thousands are permanently maimed. Over 1.9 million people—nearly the entire population of Gaza—have been displaced into uninhabitable zones with little to no access to clean water, food, medicine, or shelter. Famine is now widespread, with children starving to death in hospitals while food convoys are systematically blocked or bombed. This is not collateral damage. This is deliberate, organized destruction of a people.
These observations are not isolated. Amnesty International has concluded that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, stating:
“Amnesty International’s report demonstrates that Israel has carried out acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza.”
The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, reported to the Human Rights Council:
“There are reasonable grounds to believe the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met.”
Furthermore, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in response to a case brought by South Africa, indicated provisional measures, acknowledging:
“The Court is acutely aware of the extent of the human tragedy that is unfolding in the region and is deeply concerned about the continuing loss of life and human suffering.”
In any other context—if another country carried out such actions—there would be no hesitation in calling it genocide. But because this is being carried out by a U.S.-backed ally, many in the intellectual and media classes twist themselves into knots to avoid the term—preferring euphemisms like “tragic conflict” or “war between two sides.”
This moral evasion must end. We have a responsibility to speak clearly and act decisively. The Genocide Convention obligates its signatories not only to avoid committing genocide but to prevent it. That means stopping arms shipments, withdrawing diplomatic cover, and holding perpetrators accountable, no matter how politically inconvenient.
To call this genocide is not hyperbole. It is a factual, legal, and moral assessment. And to remain silent—or to downplay it under false arguments about speed or scale—is to be complicit.
Here is just some of the media documenting the evidence:
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6 min ·
Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza strip. Watch this video to understand how Amnesty International arrived at this conclusion.
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Chris Hedges ·
A United Nations report,publishedin October, lays out in chilling detail the advances made by Israel in Gaza as it seeks to eradicate the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine. This genocidal project, the report...
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81 min ·
This feature length investigation by Al Jazeeras Investigative Unit exposes Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip through the medium of photos and videos posted online by Israeli soldiers themselves during the year long conflict.
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10 min ·
International law is officially dead.
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79 min ·
From air strikes to field executions, Fault Lines investigates the killings of civilians by the Israeli military in Gaza and the role of the United States in the war.
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40 min ·
Stephen Kapos is an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor from Budapest, and here he tells me about the horrors he survived - and why Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. He's such an inspiring voice, full of moral clarity, and it was a...
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18 min ·
The Footage The BBC Wont Show You
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Tim Hjersted ·
According to a December poll,76% of Democrats and 61% of Americans support a permanent ceasefire. That still leaves 24% of Democrats who support Israel's war on Gaza.
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5 min ·
History is on your side.
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102 min ·
On March 7, 2025 Chris Hedges returned to The Sanctuary for Independent Media to present "Normalizing Genocide and the New World Order," a talk about how the world has changed since the genocide in Gaza began, how we navigate a world...
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Tim Hjersted ·
Some people say our calls to#CeaseFireNowshould be directed towards Hamas rather than Israel. But theres a good reason for focusing on Israel, which Ill pose with a question: which cri
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7 min ·
"Millions of Americans are deeply concerned about what is going on in Gaza today. The Netanyahu government has killed more than 50,000 people and wounded over 112,000. They have destroyed virtually all of Gazas infrastructure. And on...
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Chris Hedges ·
I gave this talk in Blackburn, England during a campaign event for my friend Craig Murray who is running for parliament. Like George Galloway, who was recently elected to parliament, Craigs central campaign issue is the genocide in...
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33 min ·
"Even if you've been closely following Israel's war crimes, South Africa's legal team provided overwhelming, utterly devastating evidence of genocide against the Palestinian people. I go through the key points and claims here - and why...
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12 min ·
For months now Israel has waged a brutal bombing campaign against Gaza. With state of the art technology, the IDF uses algorithms to generate a seemingly unending list of potential targets with a low filter for collateral damage...
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Chris Hedges ·
The indiscriminate shootings of Israelis by Hamas and other Palestinian resistance organizations, the kidnapping of civilians, the barrage of rockets into Israel, drone attacks on a variety of targets from tanks to automated machine gun...
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27 min ·
A look into how and why international laws and principles are being applied and ignored in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
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25 min ·
Jeremy Scahill is one of the top US investigative journalists - a founder of The Intercept and a bestselling author - and here he takes apart Israel's propaganda, the devastating US role in Gaza atrocities, and why Palestine's history...
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44 min ·
One year of genocide in Gaza: 365 days of unrelenting Israeli bombardment, resulting in one of the deadliest conflicts of the 21st century. This has been a war of many firsts, breaking records in scale and brutality.
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7 min ·
You wont see this in the mainstream media.
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13 min ·
The genocide in Gaza portends the emergence of a dystopian world where the industrialized violence of the Global North is used to sustain its hoarding of diminishing resources and wealth.
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Chris Hedges ·
The failure to intervene to halt the carnage threatens to ignite violence throughout the region.
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3 min ·
I saw in Auschwitz that if a dominant group wants to dehumanize others (as the Nazis wanted to dehumanize me), the dominant group must first be dehumanized in a way themselves, by diminishing their empathy due to propaganda and...
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Chris Hedges ·
Israels message, on the eve of a ground invasion, is clear. Leave Gaza or Die.
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Jon Queally ·
"This is the true patriotismno revenge wars and calls for extermination, no unnecessary bloodshed, and no sacrifice of kidnapped citizens and soldiers in false wars," said KM Ofer Cassif
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Tim Hjersted ·
We are living through this generation's WW2 moment. What will we tell our children when war crimes, including the crime of collective punishment, was committed against the Palestinian and Lebanese people with the complicit support of...
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Tim Hjersted ·
Pro-war Israel supporters today are invoking the same logic Bin Laden used to justify the 9/11 attacks. This theory, which justifies the war crime of collective punishment, is morally bankrupt no matter who promotes it.
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19 min ·
The vast majority of the world voted at the UN General Assembly to demand an end to Israel's unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory within 12 months, with 124 countries (64%) in favor, 14 (7%) against, and 43 (22%) abstentions.
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Yumna Patel ·
Seventy-five years of global inaction and Israeli impunity have led to this moment in which one of the most vulnerable populations on earth is pummeled by one of the worlds strongest military powers on a genocidal warpath.
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11 min ·
Part 2: Full interview.
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10 min ·
Never stop being shocked by this.
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13 min ·
Mohammed El-Kurd on Israel & The Art of Distraction.
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30 min ·
Ariel Bernstein is a former IDF combat soldier who fought in Gaza in 2014. Now he campaigns for peace and against the occupation.
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5 min ·
Israel intends to destroy an entire people
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28 min ·
Pro-Palestine content is suppressed on Metas platforms and has been for years, according to numerous reports. But Direct From is learning just how systemic this censorship is, and the toll its taking on employees.
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29 min ·
Israel is bombing Lebanon, with staunch US support. An Israeli minister vowed that "Lebanon will be annihilated". Ben Norton analyzes the colonial war, explains the origins of Hezbollah, and provides historical context.
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16 min ·
Israel is behaving like this because it knows its Western protectors will let it get away with everything and anything. - Owen Jones
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7 min ·
For over seven months, a dominant conversation in the U.S. news media has been about alleged and increased antisemitism on American campuses - culminating in the coverage around student encampments. The Gaza solidarity encampment at...
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Jonathan Cook ·
Walter Salles' new film on the disappearances of regime critics in 1970s Brazil is a powerful reminder that the ghouls who defend the slaughter in Gaza are biding their time
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14 min ·
The fact even CNN is reporting this is significant. - Owen Jones
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14 min ·
Remember how Israel's claims that staff at UNRWA - Gaza's main humanitarian agency - were involved in 7th October attacks drove the ICJ ruling from the headlines, and led to Western countries cancelling funds? Those claims are falling...
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135 min ·
Elites use identity, particularly national identity, as a way of advancing their own interests, often against the interests of the populations that they pretend to represent. The Israel Palestine conflict is a stark example of this...
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43 min ·
A new al-Jazeera documentary finally offers the most definitive story of that fateful day - and I talk through the shocking claims of real atrocities and false claims with journalist Richard Sanders. - Owen Jones
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14 min ·
Thought the International Court of Justice ruling would force Israel to scale back its murderous onslaught? Think again. The opposite has happened.
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14 min ·
It wasn't just the Israelis who peddled this lie - so did Western politicians and journalists. But Israeli intelligence has privately admitted the truth.
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13 min ·
The International Court of Justice rules 15-2 in favor of South Africa.
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25 min ·
Members of the Israeli far right have referred to Hamas as an asset and claimed that anyone who wants to stop a two state solution needs to support Hamas. In this video, we go over their strategy to divide and conquer the Palestinian...
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26 min ·
I'm delighted to interview Ofer Cassif, an Israeli politician of the leftist Hadash party. He has signed a petition backing South Africa's genocide claim against Israel - and he explains why he's done so, the horrors currently...
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Media Education Foundation ·
Over the past two-plus decades, the Media Education Foundation has produced and distributed documentary films, and organized a series of high-profile events and talks, to counter U.S. media narratives that have dehumanized the...
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