Gaza Genocide - Who Called It

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
— Desmond Tutu

Introduction

Naming Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide is not inflammatory rhetoric; it is the accurate application of international law to overwhelming evidence. Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, recognizing genocide is not optional — it invokes binding obligations on states to prevent and to punish. To look at Gaza today and still refuse to call it genocide is to side with the oppressor.

Leaked directives from media outlets and cautious formulations from institutions like the United Nations reveal a deliberate avoidance of the word “genocide.” But words matter: genocide is a crime under international law, not a metaphor. To deny it when the threshold has been met is to enable it. As Tutu warned, neutrality in the face of grave injustice is complicity.

This essay documents the declarations, legal findings, and warnings — from states, organizations, experts, and courts — that have pierced through the conspiracy of silence, naming Gaza’s agony for what it is.

Explicit Declarations of Genocide

• European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR, Berlin) — December 10, 2024: Concluded Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
  
• Amnesty International Germany — July 29, 2025: Declared Israel’s deliberate starvation policy constitutes genocide.
  
• Medico International — July 29, 2025: Condemned Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza as genocide.
  
• Turkey — President Erdoğan: Supplied documents to the ICJ to prove Israel’s genocide.
  
• South Africa — January 2024: Brought genocide case against Israel before the ICJ.
  
• Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) — December 2023: Declared Israel’s war “mass genocide” and supported South Africa’s case.
  
• Saudi Arabia — Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, November 2024: Called Israel’s campaign “collective genocide.”
  
• Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan — Explicitly backed genocide framing at ICJ hearings.
  
• UN Special Committee on Israeli Practices — November 2024: Found Israel’s actions “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.”

Legal Findings

• International Court of Justice (ICJ), South Africa v. Israel (2024) — Found a “plausible risk of genocide” in Gaza; issued provisional measures ordering Israel to prevent genocidal acts and allow humanitarian aid.
  
• ICJ, Bosnia v. Serbia (2007) — Established that states have a duty to act once they are aware of a serious risk of genocide, using all means reasonably available.
  
• Scholarly & Expert Consensus (2023–2025):
  • Raz Segal (Genocide scholar): Called Israel’s assault “a textbook case of genocide.”
    
  • William Schabas (Former chair, UN Gaza Inquiry): Confirmed elements of genocide were present.
    
  • Francesca Albanese, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Chris Sidoti, and over 800 scholars have signed public letters or issued statements applying the genocide framework to Gaza.

Media and Institutional Avoidance of “Genocide”

• New York Times: Leaked editorial memo in 2024 directed journalists to avoid terms like “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” and “Palestine.” Preferred sanitized “war” framing; emotive terms reserved for Israeli casualties.
  
• Western media: Major outlets rarely applied terms like “slaughter” or “massacre” to Palestinians, even amid mass civilian death.
  
• United Nations:
  • Senior officials (e.g. Tom Fletcher, Martin Griffiths) warned in 2025 of genocide unfolding.
    
  • Yet the UN as an institution insists only courts can make formal genocide determinations — a legal posture often used to justify political neutrality.
    
  • Clarification: There is no legal barrier preventing UN agencies or member states from acknowledging genocide when its characteristics are present. Legal judgment by courts is not a prerequisite to moral or political recognition.

This avoidance — in both media and international institutions — illustrates the essay’s core claim: neutrality is complicity, silence is denial.

States’ Duty to Act

The Genocide Convention (1948) and the ICJ’s Bosnia ruling (2007) are unambiguous: once a state becomes aware of a serious risk of genocide, it has a legal duty to act to prevent it. This duty is not symbolic or rhetorical — it requires concrete measures.

States must deploy every means reasonably available to influence the perpetrator and halt the genocide. This includes: - Summoning or expelling ambassadors - Cutting arms transfers - Imposing economic and diplomatic sanctions - Pursuing international arrest warrants - And, if necessary, considering collective military intervention under Chapter VII of the UN Charter

The obligation is one of both conduct and result: gestures are not enough. Inaction is complicity.

As Mario Savio declared in 1964:

“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”

The machinery of genocide grinds on in Gaza. States that look away, or worse, arm the perpetrator, grease its wheels.

Closing Note

The International Court of Justice dares to pontificate about saving the planet with lofty climate rulings, yet hesitates in the face of an active, televised genocide. Gaza is pulverized into a graveyard of shattered lives, while those with the power to intervene — the states who signed the Genocide Convention — remain paralyzed by politics or complicit through support.

This is the guilt of those who armed the slaughter, silenced the truth, and shielded the perpetrator while Gaza burned.

Imagine — your people forced into tents under relentless bombardment, starving, denied medicine, watching your children die one by one, while the world’s most powerful states arm the slaughter and dare to speak of “neutrality.”

Neutrality is not neutrality. It is siding with the oppressor.

This hypocrisy deserves nothing but condemnation. History will remember not only the perpetrators of this genocide — but the accomplices.

References

1. ICJ Provisional Measures – International Court of Justice, “Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel), Order of 26 January 2024.”
   
2. Bosnia v. Serbia – ICJ Judgment, “Case Concerning the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro), Judgment of 26 February 2007.”
   
3. Raz Segal – Jewish Currents, “A Textbook Case of Genocide,” October 2023.
   
4. William Schabas – Various public interviews and panel statements (2024–2025).
   
5. Francesca Albanese et al. – Joint letters from UN experts to Member States, 2024.
   
6. New York Times Memo – Leaked editorial guidance, April 2024 (via The Intercept).
   
7. OIC Statement – “OIC Extraordinary Islamic Summit Declaration on Gaza,” December 2023.
   
8. ECCHR Declaration – ECCHR Press Release, December 2024.
   
9. Amnesty International Germany – Statement on starvation as genocide, July 29, 2025.
   
10. Medico International – Statement on Gaza destruction, July 29, 2025.
    
11. UN Special Committee Report – Annual Report, November 2024.
    
12. Statements by Global South States – ICJ Oral Hearings, 2024–2025.