Below UWA Associate Professor of Internaitional Law Dr Melanie O’Brien describes the actions Israel committed evidencing genocide.

^Note: There are a lot of links throughout the piece on the website if you want more info about a claim it likely has a link provided. Visit the website.^

The report details evidence from two years of investigation, referring in detail to actions also previously assessed by organisations, experts and scholars to determine that Israel is committing genocide. These actions include killing members of the group: extensive killing of civilians (including children), who make up the majority of those killed in Gaza, thereby indicating that the attacks are not self-defence nor justified by military necessity or proportionality (at the time of writing, almost 65,000 people have been killed). People have been killed by bombing and shooting.

Starvation is being used as a method of warfare, and is also a significant component of the genocidal conduct. Many Palestinians have died from starvation, malnutrition, thirst or disease. This is due to the denial of food, water, sanitation and healthcare to the Palestinians in Gaza. This amounts to the genocide crime of deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction, and are acts that my research on previous genocides has determined is a key part of the genocide process.

The genocide crime of causing serious bodily or mental harm is also being committed. Over 163,000 injuries have been reported from the violence, and the health impacts of malnutrition will be long-term. Reports demonstrate the significant trauma experienced by residents of Gaza from the ongoing violence, death and fear of death.

Israel is also imposing measures intended to prevent births, the fourth crime of genocide. This is carried out through systematic sexual and gender-based violence, and substantial harm to the reproductive capacity of girls and women due to the starvation and lack of sanitation and healthcare. The destruction of maternal healthcare has increased the number of miscarriages and childbirth complications. The Commission of Inquiry highlighted an attack on a fertility clinic that contained over 4000 embryos.