Two leading human rights organisations based in Israel, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, say Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The reports accuse Israel of intentionally destroying Palestinian society in Gaza, and “deliberate and systematic destruction” of the health care system. 

Groundxero | July 28, 2025

Israeli human rights groups B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights – Israel each published reports released on Monday concluding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza as defined by international law. The groups are now calling on the international community to take action against the Israeli government to stop these atrocities.

Many international human rights groups—such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—have long described Israel’s 22-month assault on Gaza in such grave terms, as have several bodies within the United Nations. But this is the first time that Israeli human rights groups have officially done so.

B’Tselem report named OUR GENOCIDE states that “An examination of Israel’s policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. In other words: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. ”

Press conference organized by Human rights groups B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights in Jerusalem on July 28, 2025

The U.N.’s 1948 Convention on the Crime of Genocide defines Genocide as the intent to destroy—in whole or in part—a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The UN Convention emphasizes the importance of intent to destroy the group as a group. International courts that have deliberated on the matter determined that “intent” can be inferred from documents and statements by policymakers, as well as from the pattern of conduct of the perpetrating forces.

B’Tselem says that the actions and statements of Israeli politicians and military officials, and especially policymakers, as well as the pattern of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, clearly demonstrate that intent. It said that statements by senior Israeli officials and actions on the ground prove beyond any doubt that, in Israel’s eyes, the entire population of the Gaza Strip is the target.

The group said that Israel’s 20 months of military onslaught on Gaza has “included mass killing, both directly and through creating unlivable conditions, serious bodily or mental harm to an entire population, decimation of basic infrastructure throughout the strip, and forcible displacement on a huge scale, with ethnic cleansing added to the list of official war objectives.”

B’Tselem’s report emphasize that “Israel is destroying Gaza’s food system and using food as a weapon against the Palestinian people.”

A blockade on food entering Gaza has contributed to mass starvation that has resulted in at least 127 deaths, including 85 children since, October 2023. Half of those deaths have occurred over the past month. In the last 24 hours alone, Hospitals in Gaza has reported 14 cases of death by starvation and malnutrition, the Gaza Health Ministry reported, adding that two of the casualties were children who died of hunger-induced exhaustion. The ministry said that 98 Palestinians were killed and 382 injured over the past day, of whom 25 were killed and at least 237 were injured while waiting for aid.

B’Tselem report added that the assault on Palestinians in Gaza cannot be separated from the escalating violence being inflicted, at varying levels and in different forms, on Palestinians living under Israeli rule in the West Bank and within Israel. The report said that violence and destruction in these areas is intensifying over time, and warns of a risk that the genocide happening now in the Gaza Strip could rapidly spread to other areas under Israeli control, and there is no mechanism, domestic or international, that will stop it.

The group wrote:

Genocide is the systematic and intentional destruction of a group, and in Gaza we are witnessing this in its most extreme form. Meanwhile, the same government and the same forces are escalating violence in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and inside Israel. In all of these areas, Palestinians are being abandoned to escalating violence, forcible displacement, collective punishment, and denial of their human rights – solely because they are Palestinian. Israeli politicians and public figures have repeatedly stated that the destruction Israel is carrying out in Gaza should be extended to the West Bank, and we believe this incitement must be taken seriously and stopped before it is fulfilled.

B’Tselem demanded urgent and unequivocal action from both Israeli society and the international community, and urged for “the use of every means available under international law to stop Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.”

The report from Physicians for Human Rights expands upon these findings. PHRI released a position paper titled Destruction of Conditions of Life: A Health Analysis of the Gaza Genocide that documents Israel’s assault for what it is: a deliberate, cumulative, and ongoing dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system – and of the population’s ability to survive. This amounts to genocide, stated PHRI.

“Over the past 22 months, Israel has systematically targeted medical infrastructure across the Gaza Strip, attacking 33 of 36 of Gaza’s hospitals and clinics, depriving them of fuel and water,” the report states. “More than 1,800 of Gaza’s medical staff have been killed or detained.”

PHRI report states that ninety-two percent of infants in Gaza aged six months to two years don’t get enough to eat, at least 85 children have already starved to death. The report added that Israel has displaced 9 in 10 Gazans, destroyed or damaged 92% of homes, and left over half a million children without schools or stability. Further, Israel has wiped out essential health services – including dialysis, maternal care, cancer treatment, and diabetes management, in Gaza strip.

The report concludes:

This is not a temporary crisis. It is a strategy to eliminate the conditions needed for life. Even if Israel stops the offensive today, the destruction it has inflicted guarantees that preventable deaths—from starvation, infection, and chronic illness—will continue for years.

This is not collateral damage. This is not a side effect of war. It is the systematic creation of unlivable conditions. It is the denial of survivability. It is a genocide.

PHRI said that Governments and international bodies must act now to

• Compel Israel to cease its fire.
• Protect and restore Gaza’s health systems.
• Re-instate UN, international, and Palestinian mechanisms of support.
• Allow the free movement of aid.
• Ensure the safety of healthcare workers.

Over the years, B’Tselem has been one of relatively few voices in Israel to advocate for equal treatment of Palestinians, previously decrying Israel as a practitioner of “apartheid” and a “regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”

“This isn’t the first time the world has stood by while genocide is happening,” said Sarit Michaeli, B’Tselem’s international advocacy director. “World leaders are well aware. But they still have not demanded from the government of Israel: Stop!” “Preventing genocide is not just a moral duty. It’s also a legal obligation,” she continued. “So the leaders cooperating with Israel’s policies are accomplices to this crime.”

“Genocide is never supposed to happen,” she said. “Not here, not anywhere, not at all.”