The Double Genocide in Gaza by Dr. Gregory Stanton
- Gregory Stanton | Genocide Watch
- Jul 25
- 8 min read
The Double Genocide in Gaza
By Dr. Gregory Stanton, Founding President, Genocide Watch
On October 7, 2023, Hamas massacred over 1200 civilians in Israel and kidnapped 251 hostages. The hostages were tortured, beaten, or murdered. 20 remain hostage in Gaza. 148 hostages have been rescued or released, and 75 died or were murdered by Hamas.
Hamas openly declares its intent to destroy the nation of Israel and the Jewish people. Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization that must be defeated. Israel’s response to the Hamas assault on its citizens is a military response to what Israelis see as an existential threat reminiscent of the Holocaust.
But defeating genocidal terrorists does not justify committing genocide against Palestinian civilians.
Israel’s military retaliation against Hamas would be justified as self-defense if it were proportionate and distinguished Hamas combatants from Palestinian civilians.
Israeli leaders have led a dehumanizing campaign of anti-Palestinian propaganda that denies any distinction between Hamas combatants and Palestinian civilians. Israeli leaders call Palestinians “animals.” Prime Minister Netanyahu even invoked the Biblical command in Deuteronomy 24 and 1 Samuel 15: 2-3 to kill every Amalekite, a divine order to commit genocide.
Ignoring demands of Israelis to prioritize freeing Israeli hostages, Netanyahu portrays opposition to Israeli bombing in Gaza as a pro-Hamas campaign to destroy Israel itself. Netanyahu claims that the UN, ICC, and protests against Israel’s war crimes are “antisemitic,” conflating opposition to Israel’s war with antisemitism.
Is Israel committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza?
The crime of genocide is defined in the Genocide Convention.
“Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:(a) Killing members of the group;(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
(a) Has Israel killed a substantial part of the Palestinian national and ethnic group?
The UN estimates that 58,000 Palestinians and 1500 Israelis have died since October 7, 2023. At least 17,000 of the Palestinian dead were children. To deny these statistics, Israel uses two classic tactics of denial : attack the truth tellers and minimize the statistics. Israel claims Hamas and UN figures are unreliable exaggerations.
Israel allows only Palestinian journalists to report from Gaza. No foreign journalists have access except on IDF escorted tours. 55 prominent journalists protested this ban. This policy allows Israel to claim that reports of its war crimes and crimes against humanity come from biased sources, a tactic of denial.
A study published in The Lancet in January 2025 estimated that approximately 64,260 Palestinians died from traumatic injuries in Gaza between October 7, 2023, and June 30, 2024. This figure is 40% higher than the 37,877 deaths reported by Gaza's Health Ministry during the same period. The Lancet study used data from hospital records, an online survey, and social media obituaries to estimate the death toll.
(b) Has Israel intentionally caused serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group?
2 million Palestinians in Gaza are on the brink of starvation. Israel has blocked over eighty percent of food aid from entering Gaza since the start of the war. Israel claims it has permitted enough food aid, but it is stolen by Hamas. This claim is intended to convince Israelis that Israel is obeying the laws of war. It is not. The truth is that Israel has allowed under twenty percent of necessary food to be delivered to Gaza.
The Israeli Defense Forces have intentionally targeted media and aid groups. As of July 18, 2025, at least 1,513 humanitarian workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, including 237 UN staff members, primarily from UNRWA. This includes 126 UN staff members in 2024, marking the highest number in UN history. 15 Palestinian aid workers were found in a mass grave in March 2025, and 12 Doctors Without Borders staff have been killed since October 2023.
(c) Has Israel deliberately inflicted on the Palestinian group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part?
Israeli bombs intentionally target schools, homes, hospitals, and designated humanitarian zones. Israel has used 2000-pound bombs that level entire apartment buildings and throw shrapnel that kills and maims people 360 meters away. Over 174,000, buildings in Gaza have been destroyed and over 19,000 severely damaged. Over ninety percent (436,000 homes) of the dwellings in Gaza are uninhabitable.
Israel is blowing up all remaining buildings in Rafah, where it intends to confine all 1.8 million Gaza residents in a cynically named “humanitarian city.” They will be screened to exclude Hamas militants. Israeli troops will provide “security.” Palestinians will not be permitted to leave this de facto concentration camp. Forced transfer of a population is a crime against humanity under ICC Statute Article 7(1)(d).
All hospitals in Gaza have been bombed by Israel on the pretext that Hamas uses them as bases.
The UN reports that all Gaza hospitals lack water, fuel, staff, and medical supplies.
Israel claims that Hamas hides under hospitals and among Palestinian civilians, using them as human shields. Israel’s rules of engagement permit killing twenty civilians for each Hamas fighter killed, the highest “collateral damage” percentage in any modern war. These rules of engagement give Israeli Air Force and IDF troops a license to carpet bomb Gaza and commit war crimes.
Directing attacks against hospitals is a war crime that violates ICC statute Article 8(2)(b)(ix).
Recognition of Israeli genocide by scholars and the public
In a guest opinion article in the New York Times on July 15, 2025, Dr. Omar Bartov, a renowned Holocaust and genocide expert, noted that many Holocaust scholars have been reluctant to call Israel’s actions in Gaza by the powerful G-word, Genocide.
Many Israelis, American Jews, and Holocaust scholars have refused to believe that Israel’s destruction in Gaza approaches the horror of the Holocaust, which attempted to kill all Jewish people. Popular concepts of Genocide are that Genocide requires the attempt to eliminate a group “in whole.” But the Genocide Convention only requires destruction of a group “in part.”
This misunderstanding of the Genocide Convention is the basis of Bret Stephens’ denial in “No. Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza.” (NY Times, July 23, 2025.) If Israel is really committing genocide, “why isn’t the death count higher?”
Intentionally killing or starving members of a group because of their group identity is destroying a group “in part.” That is genocide as defined by the Genocide Convention
Genocide is an intentional crime. The perpetrator state must intend to destroy a group “in whole or in part.” Intent can be proven by statements from leaders. It can also be proven by a systematic pattern of the acts of genocide enumerated in the Genocide Convention.
The other tactic in Stephens’ denial is to assert that this is a war, not a genocide. But most genocides occur during wars. War and genocide aren’t mutually exclusive. They often go together. Both are justified by the same dehumanization of the “enemy,” the “other.”
Many Israelis say they have no intention to harm all Palestinians. They only want to defeat Hamas.
But Israel’s war in Gaza has gone far beyond a war to defeat Hamas. Most of Gaza has been destroyed. Israel’s bombing has taken over 58,000 Palestinian lives.
Most genocide scholars, in contrast to Holocaust scholars, acknowledge that the Israeli destruction of Palestinians in Gaza is Genocide. Dr. Bartov was at first reluctant to call Israel’s attacks Genocide. But he has now concluded that he “knows it when he sees it,” and Israel is committing Genocide.
Dr. Bartov’s change of opinion has been driven by Israel’s continuing destruction of Gaza, including every hospital, and its intentional bombing of displaced civilians. But for Dr. Bartov and other doubters, the events of the last three months have finally clarified Israel’s intent to destroy a substantial part of the Palestinian population of Gaza.
For three months in 2025, Israel blockaded all food, water, medicine, and fuel to Gaza. Israel closed all food and aid distribution by the United Nations. Israel refused to lift restrictions on desperately needed goods and services entering Gaza from the UN and relief NGOs and refused to provide more aid crossings.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was established in February 2025 and supported by the U.S. and Israel. It is now the only organization permitted to distribute food in Gaza.
The UN formerly distributed aid directly to Palestinians where they lived. The GHF requires them to walk miles through Israeli gunfire.
Since May, Israel Defence Force snipers have shot and killed over 1000 Palestinian civilians seeking food from GHF distribution sites. Many of those killed were children who were shot in the head or the back.
These murders and the destruction of hospitals and medical clinics by Israeli Defence Forces are war crimes and crimes against humanity of extermination. They are also acts of genocide.
“Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units, or vehicles involved in a humanitarian or peacekeeping mission” is a war crime under ICC statute Article 8(2)(b)(iii).
Dr. Bartov and the entire world have been shocked by Israel’s murders of unarmed civilians seeking food.
Under international law, as an occupying power, Israel has a legal obligation to provide basic needs to Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. Not only has Israel failed to provide for basic needs, but Israel actively blocks aid into Gaza.
Starvation is the crime against humanity of Extermination under Article 7 (1)(b) of the ICC statute: “the intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter alia the deprivation of access to food and medicine, calculated to bring about the destruction of part of a population.” Starvation is also a method of genocide.
On 29 December 2023 South Africa brought a case for violation of the Genocide Convention against Israel in the International Court of Justice. On 26 January 2024, the ICJ issued provisional measures calling on Israel to prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians and do more to help civilians. Instead of abiding by the ICJ’s orders, Israel has increased its persecution and killings of Palestinian civilians.
Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant have been charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
Prime Minister Netanyahu states that there will be no end to the war until Hamas is totally destroyed.
Such demands for total surrender make ending wars impossible without a total victory by one side.
This war can be stopped only when Hamas releases all hostages and Israel withdraws from Gaza. Meanwhile scores of Palestinian civilians are being killed daily by constant bombing while hundreds are dying of starvation. Any hope for peace between Israel and Palestinians depends on ending this war.
THE ONLY WAY TO STOP WAR CRIMES AND GENOCIDE IN GAZA IS TO STOP THIS WAR.
Published with Creative Commons copyright 2025 Genocide Watch. This article may be copied and republished freely with full attribution to Dr. Gregory Stanton and Genocide Watch and without alteration of any of its language or meaning.
Dr. Gregory H. Stanton is Founding President of Genocide Watch and the Alliance Against Genocide. He founded the Cambodian Genocide Project. He was Professor in Genocide Studies at George Mason University and was James Farmer Professor in Human Rights at the University of Mary Washington. He was a law professor at Washington and Lee University. In the State Department, he wrote UN Security Council Resolution 955 that established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He wrote the rules of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. He was President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. He holds degrees from Oberlin, Harvard Divinity School, Yale Law School, and a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Chicago.
