The following article is an open statement from a growing group of over 230 legal experts, including renowned judges, lawyers, professors, and researchers. This is the first time it has been published in English.
While the ceasefire of January offers a glimpse of an end to Israel’s systematic massacres in Gaza, history teaches us that lasting peace cannot be built without justice. It is therefore crucial not to allow international law to also die in Gaza, starting with correctly qualifying the crimes committed by Israel under this law. Dozens of legal experts, including lawyers, judges, and law professors from around the world, join United Nations experts and rapporteurs in this statement to affirm that the crimes should be qualified as genocide, thereby reminding States of their legal obligations whenever there is a “serious risk” of genocide.
The 1948 Genocide Convention defines this particular crime as one or more “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” Israel has committed at least three of these acts in Gaza: “killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and intentionally inflicting living conditions on the group that would lead to its physical destruction, in whole or in part”.
Firstly, since October 8 2023, Israeli strikes have directly killed more than 47,354 people in Gaza, including more than 14,500 children, not to mention the thousands buried under rubble.
Secondly, more than 111,563 people have been injured, with Gaza having the highest rate of child amputations per capita in the world, and the climate of terror has caused massive trauma. Widespread use of torture and ill-treatment has been documented in detention, also severely affecting the physical and psychological integrity of Palestinians in Gaza.
Thirdly, Israel has systematically bombed objects indispensable to survival (water access points, agricultural lands, etc.), 92% of housing units, 84% of healthcare facilities, sanitation and power installations (leading to a record number of infections and diseases), and displaced 90% of the population into camps, which were then bombed.
Additionally, Israel has imposed a “complete siege” of Gaza, only letting humanitarian aid trickle in. Acute malnutrition has reached alarming levels, threatening to “lose an entire generation”, according to UNICEF. In July 2024, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food confirmed that “Israel is using starvation as a tactic in the current moment of its genocide”. These conditions are indeed likely to lead to the “total or partial destruction” of the Palestinians in Gaza, condemning them to a slow death, in the terms of the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Contrary to popular belief, genocide does not require a minimum number of victims. Several jurisdictions have qualified as genocide atrocities involving massacres of lesser magnitude, such as those against the Yazidis or Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica.
Regarding the intentional element of genocide, the will to annihilate part of the group is sufficient, provided it is substantial. Jurisprudence allows that the targeted part of the group may be in a “geographically limited area“, evaluating the control and opportunity of the perpetrator over this area. Gaza is landlocked and under Israeli control, meaning Israel has the “opportunity” to annihilate its population.
Moreover, Gazans make up 40% of the 5.5 million Palestinians in the occupied territories, a “significant enough for its destruction to have an impact on the group as a whole” whose disappearance would have an impact on the entire group. The quantitative criterion is tragically met, so the ICJ recognized in January 2024 that this constitutes a “substantial” part of the group, without needing to examine other factors.
Additionally, Israel’s genocidal intent can be demonstrated by direct evidence, as Israeli officials have made public statements and documents clearly expressing it. Yoav Gallant revealed, “We are fighting human animals and acting accordingly (…) Gaza will not return to what it was before. We will destroy everything.”. Israeli President Isaac Herzog added, “And we will fight until we’ll break their backbone“.
In November 2023, 37 UN experts and rapporteurs expressed concern over “discernibly genocidal and dehumanising rhetoric coming from senior Israeli government officials”, calling for the “total destruction” and “erasure” of Gaza and the need to “finish them all,” rhetoric involved “several sectors of Israeli society.”.
Regarding circumstantial evidence of genocidal intent, experts noted the systematic use of weapons against civilians, prohibited by the laws of armed conflict, causing disproportionate fatalities among them: “25,000 tons of explosives“, equivalent to two nuclear bombs, were dropped in the first months on an area the size of half of Madrid, targeting densely populated neighbourhoods, often at night.
Unusual and planned methods were also observed: shooting civilians coming to collect food, attacks on the route taken by the population as they were forcibly evacuated within 24 hours, repeated forced displacement of Gazans to “safe zones” later designated as refugee camps and subsequently bombed, and the destruction of hospitals and schools where survivors sought refuge. Israel’s continued commission of crimes despite repeated warnings from the UN and the ICJ—who established that there is a “real and imminent risk” of genocide—also serves as a crucial indicator of genocidal intent.
Finally, Israel cannot invoke the motive for its crimes as justification, as genocidal intent can be “a method of conducting hostilities” to achieve other military objectives, such as the eradication of Hamas in this case. Israel cannot invoke either the right to self-defense without respecting the principles of necessity and proportionality. In any case, an occupying state cannot resort to it if the threat originates from “the occupied territory”.
The signatories of this statement urgently call on all States to uphold their international law obligations: to prevent any genocidal acts against the Palestinians in Gaza and other occupied Palestinian territories; to exert every effort to ensure a lasting ceasefire; to impose a total arms embargo and economic sanctions on Israel; to halt any financial or military aid to Israel or any support that could be prosecuted for complicity in genocide and suspend cooperation agreements with Israel; to support the enforcement of ICJ provisional measures orders; to arrest those against whom arrest warrants have been issued by the International Criminal Court; and to prosecute in their judicial systems individuals and entities responsible for and complicit in the genocide, including under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
This statement was made possible by the work of individual independent lawyers.
Research and writing:
Marie-Laure Guislain, French lawyer in Paris, specialised in international crimes, having notably written the complaint against Lafarge for complicity in crimes against humanity in Syria, and against BNP for complicity in genocide in Rwanda.
Tamsin Malbrand, French lawyer in Marseille, specialised in international crimes, having notably written the complaint against BNP for complicity in genocide in Rwanda.
Contribution:
Joel Bedda, French lawyer in international criminal law and humanitarian law, in Montpellier.
Yasmina El Moussaid, French lawyer in international law, in Paris.
You can read the full list of signatories below:
Featured image via the Canary
