“Live-streamed Genocide”: Amnesty says “Israel” acting to destroy Palestinians in Gaza

Amnesty International accused “Israel” on Tuesday of committing a "live-streamed genocide" against Palestinians by forcibly displacing Gazans and creating a humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged strip, claims “Israel” dismissed as "blatant lies".

Echoing global concern after more than 18 months of war, the United Nations' rights chief Volker Turk meanwhile called on the international community to launch "concerted efforts" to end “Israel's” total aid blockade on the Gaza Strip, in effect since early March.

Rights group Amnesty, in its annual report, said “Israel” was acting with "specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide".

"States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools,” Amnesty's secretary-general Agnes Callamard said.

“Israel” rejected the accusations, accusing Amnesty of spreading Hamas propaganda and insisting that the military did not target civilians.

“Extreme” suffering

Amnesty said it had "documented multiple war crimes by Israel" including attacks on civilians, and that Israel had "deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe".

The London-based rights group said 1.9 million people – about 90 percent of Gaza's population – had been forcibly displaced during the war. The UN has cited similar figures.

“Israeli” foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein rejected the accusations, saying that "the radical anti-Israel organisation Amnesty has once again chosen to publish baseless lies against Israel."

"Israel is targeting only terrorists and never civilians," he told AFP.

Marmorstein charged that Hamas "deliberately targets Israeli civilians and hides behind Palestinian civilians".

Children starving

Turk, the UN rights chief, said the "humanitarian catastrophe" in Gaza must be stopped.

"There must be concerted international efforts to stop this humanitarian catastrophe from reaching a new unseen level," he said in a statement.

"Israel appears to be inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life increasingly incompatible with their continued existence as a group in Gaza".

The UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said children and the sick were the most vulnerable.

"Children in Gaza are going to bed starving. The ill and the sick are not able to get medical care because of shortages in supplies," said UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma.

"Gaza has become a land of desperation... The siege on Gaza is a silent killer," she said.

The UN agency also said that more than 50 of its staff, including teachers and doctors, had been abused by “Israeli” forces in detention during the course of the war.

"They reported being beaten + used as human shields," UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X.

“Israel” has accused some UNRWA employees of involvement in the events of October 7 and has banned it from operating within its territory.