For the first time, two major Israeli human rights organisations — B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) — are openly calling Israel’s war in Gaza “genocide”. Their reports landed in Jerusalem this week, calling on the world to act and putting Israel’s government under even greater scrutiny.
It’s a line many international groups and UN experts had already stated was crossed. But until now, these Israeli organisations hadn’t used the term.
B’Tselem, known for decades of documenting human rights in Israel and the occupied territories, released a report titled ‘Our Genocide‘. They say the situation in Gaza now — mass deaths, destroyed neighbourhoods, forced evacuations, and people jailed in harsh conditions — meets the legal definition of genocide.
“We are publishing today is one we never imagined we would have to write,” said B’Tselem’s executive director Yuli Novak, as quoted by ABC.
“But in recent months, we have been witnessing a reality that has left us no choice but to acknowledge the truth.
“Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
Novak added that the Hamas attack on Israel, which killed around 1,200 people and saw hundreds taken hostage, was a “trigger” — but could not excuse the scale of response. “October 7 was real… it was a criminal attack,” she said, but “that collective trauma was taken advantage of by a government.”
PHRI focused on the health crisis in Gaza. Its report (PHRI English PDF) details how hospitals from Al-Shifa to Nasser and beyond have been hit, staff have been killed or detained, and access to care is almost gone.
“From the start, Israel portrayed hospitals as legitimate military targets, justifying attacks that would never be tolerated anywhere in the world,” PHRI’s executive director Guy Shalev told media.
According to Shalev, “Amid this horror, our colleagues and friends, the healthcare workers of Gaza, are acting heroically to save lives while they themselves are under direct attack.”
PHRI claims more than 1,500 health workers have died, and 300 have been detained.
The Israeli government has rejected any claims of genocide. A spokesperson for Israel’s foreign ministry called B’Tselem’s findings a “politically motivated document”, arguing that, “such an accusation is obscene, baseless in both fact and law, and only emboldens Hamas”.
Israel maintains its fight is against Hamas, not Palestinians. “Our defence forces target terrorists and never civilians. Hamas is responsible for the suffering in Gaza,” government spokesperson David Mencer said, per BBC.
Both B’Tselem and PHRI say part of what counts as genocide is intent – and they point to statements from Israeli leaders as evidence of that. Novak said “the highest political level in Israel… stood out and told the world and also their soldiers their intent”.
“They marked the entire population of Gaza as responsible for Hamas’s attack,” she said.
“They called Gazans human animals.”
PHRI’s report found the devastation of healthcare “not incidental to war but part of a deliberate policy targeting Palestinians as a group”, referencing the 1948 Genocide Convention.
This isn’t the first time Israel’s war in Gaza has been accused of crossing legal lines. The International Court of Justice is currently investigating a separate genocide claim, and rights groups globally have pressed similar points.
UN experts, including Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, also called the war atrocities in Gaza a genocide in 2024.
“If you go to a doctor because you have cancer and you are diagnosed with fever, you have a big problem — it’s the same with the people who are being genocided,” she said.
Israel rejects all these allegations as “wholly unfounded”.
But B’Tselem’s Novak says the process of recognition was “a very hard mental and personal process. It breaks something very basic in your understanding about who we are”.
“It breaks something very basic in your understanding about who we are,” she said.
As the reports make waves, PHRI’s Shalev urged: “Silence in the face of genocide is not an option. We want to stress: confronting genocide is not only the responsibility of legal and political institutions. Confronting it demands urgent action from the global health community.”
Lead image: AP News
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