Sondos Asem
Middle East Eye / December 6, 2024
Agnes Callamard says it’s time for ICC to charge Israeli leaders with the crime of committing genocide in Gaza.
The secretary general of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamard, has urged British politicians to revise their denial that genocide is being committed in Gaza, following a major report by the group concluding that Israel is guilty of genocide.
The world’s leading human rights group on Thursday declared that Israel has committed and continues to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, based on extensive legal and field research covering the period between 7 October 2023 and early July 2024.
“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 following the release of Amnesty’s 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.
‘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’ – Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International
“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.
MEE contacted Starmer for comment but has not received a response by the time of publication.
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.”
Amnesty has found sufficient evidence to conclude that Israel has committed three of the prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention against Palestinians in Gaza as a protected group.
The crimes are killing; causing serious bodily or mental harm; and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part.
The group has also reached the conclusion that the acts were committed with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a protected group under the Genocide Convention, an essential step in the legal conclusion that genocide was committed.
“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.”
The group’s legal team looked at direct evidence of intent, including over 100 statements by members of Israel’s War Cabinet.
It also examined indirect evidence by analysing the pattern of conduct by the Israeli army breaching international law, the scale and severity of the casualties and the continued destruction inflicted on the enclave and its population despite multiple binding orders by the World Court to halt genocidal acts.
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.”
ICC urged to accuse Israel of genocide
The report is the first such effort by Amnesty and any international rights group to conduct legal analysis during a conflict and conclude that a genocide is being committed.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is currently hearing a case brought by South Africa in December accusing Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention during the course of its military onslaught on Gaza since October last year.
It may take years for the ICJ to reach a judgement in the case, as is the nature of international legal proceedings. But the court has recognised the plausibility of South Africa’s application and issued three interim orders for Israel to prevent and punish actions that violate the convention.
‘We are calling on the prosecutor and then on the judges to consider adding the crime of genocide to the arrest warrants’ – Agnes Callamard
Callamard hopes the Amnesty report will assist the court in its current deliberations.
“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.
Sondos Asem is a journalist and news editor at Middle East Eye in London
