London (Quds News Network)- Amnesty International’s Secretary General, Agnes Callamard, has urged British officials to reconsider their denial of genocide in Gaza, following a landmark report by the organization which concludes that Israel is committing genocide in the war-torn enclave.
On Thursday, the world’s leading human rights group published the report titled, “You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, saying it is the culmination of months of research by Amnesty, including extensive witness interviews, analysis of “visual and digital evidence”, including satellite imagery, and “dehumanising and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials”.
Amnesty said the Israeli military has committed at least three of the five acts banned by the 1948 Genocide Convention, including indiscriminate killings of civilians, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and “deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction”.
“I hope that Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his foreign minister will read through the 300 pages of evidence that we have provided,” Agnes Callamard told Middle East Eye (MEE) following the release of the report.
“Genocide is not a matter of belief. Genocide is not a matter of desire. Genocide is a matter of law. Genocide is a matter of fact.”
Callamard also said the UK, US and German governments may be found complicit in genocide, as a result of their support for the Israeli army.
Complicity in genocide is a substantive crime under Article III of the 1948 Genocide Convention.
“For the last 14 months, we’ve had a few governments that have supported Israel: the United States, Germany, and the UK.
“They have supported them and they have sold weapons. Therefore, they are facing the real risk of being complicit in the crime of genocide,” she told MEE.
A spokesperson of Foreign Secretary David Lammy told MEE that the position of the British government has not changed. They quoted Starmer as saying in parliament recently: “I am well aware of the definition of genocide, and that is why I have never described this or referred to it as genocide.”
“What distinguishes a genocide from other crimes is the notion of genocidal intent. That is, the fact that we need to demonstrate that Israel intended to destroy, in part or in full, the Palestinians of Gaza,” said Callamard.
“This is a difficult threshold, and it has taken many months of research and investigation to reach the conclusion that, indeed, Israel had genocidal intent.”
Israel’s declared military objective of defeating Hamas in Gaza does not justify such genocidal intent, Callamard added.
“Genocidal intent can coexist with military objectives,” said Callamard.
“Palestinians are dying… They are being starved. They cannot fish, they cannot farm, they cannot have a home. They cannot have a life. They cannot work. They live without dignity. They have to fight to get a piece of bread. There is genocide happening.”
“We have absolutely no doubt that the judges and all those involved in the case will consider the evidence that we have provided,” she said.
She added that the International Criminal Court (ICC) should add genocide to the list of charges against Israeli leaders.
On 21 November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant after finding reasonable grounds for charging them with the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare along with the crimes against humanity of murder and persecution.
The court has yet to add genocide to the charges.
“We are calling on the prosecutor and then on the judges to consider adding the crime of genocide to the arrest warrants that have already been issued and to determine who may be guilty individually of committing the crime of genocide,” Callamard said.
All 124 member states of the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty, are now under a legal obligation to arrest and surrender Netanyahu and Gallant to the court in The Hague.
But France, a state party to the Rome Statute, has signalled that Netanyahu may benefit from immunity as a sitting head of government.
Callamard, who is French, said she is “shocked” by France’s stance, declared by the foreign ministry days after the warrants were issued.
“International jurisprudence has clearly argued that when it comes to the International Criminal Court, [immunity] is not applicable,” she said, also denouncing “the double standard” of the US and France in supporting the ICC’s arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin but not for Israeli leaders.
“Governments must come together. They must create a strong political platform demanding an end to the genocide and demanding accountability. They must be looking at all possible means, including sanctioning the government of Israel,” she said.
Source: Qusnan
