Introduction
I’ve been wanting to assemble this document for many months. Even though there is now a helpful Wikipedia article (finally!) documenting the Gaza genocide, I thought this would be more concise and to the point.
The genocide in Gaza is the most documented and, in some ways, most record-breaking genocide in human history (although all genocides are obviously unique and break records in their own right). What follows completely excludes the tens of thousands of hi-definition color videos of the genocide available almost everywhere (the highest credible coverage of this by professional – and insanely brave – journalists is without a doubt, Al Jazeera. But we could never forget the many others, such as Motaz). I also focus on human suffering and not animals suffering (which is just as horrific, and I’ve submitted a publication on this subject.)
Instead of all that, this is an annotated bibliography of independent reports documenting the Gaza genocide, first beginning with a summary of some of the facts.
A Uniquely Destructive Genocide
In less than a year, the Israeli occupation forces:
- Dropped the equivalent of seven nuclear bombs (comparable to Hiroshima and Nagasaki; over 80,000 tones) on one of the densest populations on earth in a space less than a third the size of London. This constituted the most destructive bombing campaign since WWII. “Gaza is now a different colour from space. It’s a different texture” (Van Den Hoek cited in Al Jazeera 2023)
- Killed more journalists than WWII and Vietnam combined (CPJ 2024), and killed more United Nations workers than any other event in United Nations history (UN 2024).
- Destroyed more United Nations schools and buildings than any other event in its history (OHCHR 2024).
- Killed an average of 500 children per week. (The primary method of dying was the following: buried alive, burned alive, dismembered, starved.)
- Created what appears to be the fastest forced-famine on record (Regan and Lau 2024); “What’s unique about this [famine] has been the speed…We’ve never seen 2.2 million civilians made to go hungry within weeks. So we’ve never seen this degree of hunger used as a weapon so quickly and so completely—ever.” (Michael Fakhri, UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food; 2024).
- Created the highest number of child amputees in history (Griswold 2024).
- Displaced over 90% of the population (Agent France-Presse 2024) and destroyed over 2/3 of housing.
- Bombed every hospital (36) and university (12) in Gaza, going far beyond ordinary war crimes into “scholasticide” (OHCHR 2024). Among the university presidents and thousands of professors assassinated (Gaza had one of the highest number of PhDs per capita in the world), professor Refaat Alareer was warned by the IDF that they were going assassinate him, and so wrote what became a world-famous poem, “If I Must Die,” hours before he and his family were bombed (Alareer 2023).
- Destroyed the sanitation system and revived the Polio virus. As with the use of smallpox blankets by the European colonizers in the Americas, this was a strategic use of disease. The former head of Israel’s National Security Council, General Giora Eiland argued that “We must not shy away from this, as difficult that may be. After all, severe epidemics in the south of Gaza will bring victory closer and reduce casualties among the IDF soldiers” (Middle East Eye 2023); only IDF soldiers were vaccinated for Polio (Bletter 2024), and over 1 million polio vaccines were blocked from entering Gaza.
- Cut off 94% of water to all of Gaza. (Oxfam 2024)
I can’t verify, but I do believe it is true, that the “war in Gaza” is the first war in history where (a) 100% of the population is displaced, (b) over 2/3 of all residential housing is destroyed, and (c) over half the victims are women and children.
An Annotated Bibliography of Independent Reports Documenting (and Condemning) Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
South Africa. (2023). “Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel).” International Court of Justice. South Africa vs. Israel. This is the original court filing for Israel’s genocide at the Genocide Convention of the International Court of Justice. Note that it was filed in December 29, less than three months after Israel’s invasion of Gaza. The reason why SA filed so quickly was because (a) the damage done was already catastrophic, (b) the public intent to destroy Gaza was so explicit, and (c), so many innocents were being slaughtered. The reason why South Africa filed against Israel (and not another country) is likely because Israel facilitated and directly supported the apartheid regime, its technologies, and apartheid militaries until its collapse in the 1990s. (Note that Israel denies the genocides in Armenia and Bosnia because it also funded them as well.)
South Africa. (2024). Court Orders to Israel for genocide case 192 (February and March) Israel completely rejected the requests made by South Africa and recognized by the court. This was so obvious and well document that when South Africa requested provisional measures twice (here and here), requesting that very specific genocidal activity be ceased (e.g., the destruction of the last remaining refugee camp in Gaza, request for water to be turned back on and aid trucks to be allowed in, etc.), the court responded by issuing direct orders with near unanimous consent. (They were all ignored.)
Segal, Raz, et. al. (December 7, 2024). “Statement of Scholars in Holocaust and Genocide Studies on Mass Violence in Israel and Palestine since 7 October.” Contending Modernities (University of Notre Dame). This is a public statement jointly authored/signed by over fifty-five holocaust scholars warning of genocide. The opening paragraph is: “We, scholars of the Holocaust, genocide, and mass violence, feel compelled to warn of the danger of genocide in Israel’s attack on Gaza.” Note that it’s compiler and organizer, Raz Segal, wrote an earlier essay in Jewish Currents (within days after the October 7 events) entitled “A Textbook Case of Genocide.”
Lemkin Institute for Genocide Research. (December 29, 2023). “Statement on Why We Call the Attack on Gaza Genocide.” R. Lempkin coined the termed “genocide” in 1944. The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention aims to prevent genocide in Lemkin’s legacy. They concluded by December (as with the above), that Israel was committing genocide.
Albanese, F. (March 24, 2024). “Anatomy of a Genocide – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 to Human Rights Council.” United Nations. To assess what was happening in Gaza, the United Nations assigned a specialist to investigate and report back to the human rights council. She concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
University Network for Human Rights . “Genocide in Gaza.” (May 15, 2024). The University Network of Human Rights is comprised of the International Human Rights Clinic at Boston University School of Law, the International Human Rights Clinic at Cornell Law School, the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria, and the Lowenstein Human Rights Project at Yale Law School. Their extensive report, possibly the most scholarly since it is a joint document of some of the world’s leading human rights organizations and law schools, documents Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Oxfam International. (2023-). “Gaza Strip.” In a series of topical and continuing reports, the leading human rights organization Oxfam documents Israel’s “genocidal” acts in Gaza.
Human Rights Watch. (February 26, 2024). “Israel Not Complying with World Court Order in Genocide Case.” This leading human rights organization argued that Israel fails to obey the Genocide Conventions orders to cease genocidal acts. Furthermore,
Mordecai, Lee. (June, 2024). “Bearing Witness to the Israel-Gaza War.” Mordecai is a Senior Lecturer in history at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He wrote an extensive document with many first-hand eye-witness evidence posted on social media. “I, Lee Mordechai, a historian by profession and an Israeli citizen, bear witness in this document to the horrible current situation in Gaza as events are unfolding. The enormous amount of evidence I have seen, much of it referenced later in this document, has been enough for me to believe that Israel is currently committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza.”
Goldberg, Amos. (May 14, 2024). “Yes It is Genocide.” Jewish Voice for Labour. Goldberg is Professor of Holocaust History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and wrote an article explaining the genocide in Gaza. As summarized in the article’s heading:
In most cases of genocide, the perpetrators of the murder said they were acting in self-defense. The fact that what is happening in Gaza does not resemble the Holocaust, writes Holocaust scholar Amos Goldberg, does not mean that it is not genocide.
Yes, it is genocide. Although it is so difficult and painful to admit this and despite all efforts to think otherwise, at the end of six months of a brutal war it is no longer possible to escape this conclusion. Jewish history will henceforth be stained with the mark of Cain of the “crime of crimes,” which cannot be erased from its forehead. As such, it will stand trial for generations.
Bartov, Omer. (August 13, 2024). “As a former IDF soldier and historian of genocide, I was deeply disturbed by my recent visit to Israel.” The Guardian. Bartov is perhaps the world’s leading holocaust scholar today. He explains why he believes Israeli society has degraded to the same level as Nazi Germany, and why he changed his mind since November that after May 6, 2024, it is clear Israel is committing genocide of Gaza.
Sultany, Nimar. (2024). “A Threshold Crossed: On Genocidal Intent and the Duty to Prevent Genocide in Palestine.” Journal of Genocide Research, 1–26. This article, written by a legal scholar, documents Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
El-Affendi, A. (2024). “The Futility of Genocide Studies After Gaza.” Journal of Genocide Research, 1–7. This more peripheral article notes that the failure to condemn the Israeli genocide in Gaza and defenses of it in the literature and by others, has undermined the concept of genocide itself. This is similar to other remarks by International Law Professor Neve Gordon (Queen Mary University, London “If the world accepts the way Israel now interprets the principle of proportionality, then genocide will become justified” (2024).
Khatib, R., McKee, M., and Yusuf, S. (2024). “Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential.” The Lancet 404(10449), pp. 237-238. This article in perhaps the most prestigious medical journal in the world, argues that about 186,000 people have died in Gaza since July 2024, amounting to about 7% of the total population.
The following is an infographic produced by Euro-Med Monitor from 7-October to 12 July. (Numbers are conservative given the way the medical system counts the deaths. Refer above to “Counting the dead” above.)
