Israeli rights groups break taboo with accusations of genocide

By Charlotte Greenfield

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -When two human rights groups became the first major voices in Israel to accuse the state of committing genocide in Gaza, breaking a taboo in a country founded after the Holocaust, they were prepared for a backlash.

B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel released reports at a press conference in Jerusalem on Monday, saying Israel was carrying out "coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip".

That marked the strongest possible accusation against the state, which vehemently denies it. The charge of genocide is deeply sensitive in Israel because of its origins in the work of Jewish legal scholars in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust. Israeli officials have rejected genocide allegations as antisemitic.

So Sarit Michaeli, B'Tselem's international director, said the group expected to face attacks for making the claim in a country still traumatised by the deadly Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023 that triggered the war in Gaza.

"We've looked into all of the risks that we could be facing. These are legal, reputation, media risks, other types of risk, societal risks and we've done work to try and mitigate these risks," said Michaeli, whose organisation is seen as being on the political fringe in Israel but is respected internationally.

"We are also quite experienced in attacks by the government or social media, so this is not the first time." It's not unrealistic "to expect this issue, which is so fraught and so deeply contentious within Israeli society and internationally to lead to an even greater reaction," she said.

Israel's foreign ministry and prime minister's office did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Shortly after the reports were released on Monday, government spokesperson David Mencer said: "Yes, of course we have free speech in Israel." He strongly rejected the reports' findings and said that such accusations fostered anti-semitism abroad.

Some Israelis have expressed concern over Israel's military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, destroyed much of the enclave and led to widespread hunger.

An international global hunger monitor said on Tuesday a famine scenario was unfolding in the Gaza Strip, with malnutrition soaring, children under five dying of hunger-related causes and humanitarian access severely restricted.

"For me, life is life, and it's sad. No one should die there," said nurse Shmuel Sherenzon, 31.

But the Israeli public generally rejects allegations of genocide.

Most of the 1,200 people killed and the 251 taken hostage to Gaza in the October 7 attacks in southern Israel were civilians, including men, women, children and the elderly.

In an editorial titled "Why are we blind to Gaza?" published on the mainstream news site Ynet last week, Israeli journalist Sever Plocker said images of ordinary Palestinians rejoicing over the attacks in and even following the militants to take part in violence made it almost impossible for Israelis to feel compassion for Gazans in the months that followed.

"The crimes of Hamas on October 7 have deeply burned – for generations – the consciousness of the entire Jewish public in Israel, which now interprets the destruction and killing in Gaza as a deterrent retaliation and therefore also morally legitimate."

ISRAEL DENIES THERE IS A GENOCIDE

Israel has fended off accusations of genocide since the early days of the Gaza war, including a case brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice in the Hague that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned as "outrageous".

While Israeli human rights groups say it can be difficult working under Israel's far-right government, they don't experience the kind of tough crackdowns their counterparts face in other parts of the Middle East.

Israel has consistently said its actions in Gaza are justified as self-defence and accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields, a charge the militant group denies.

Israeli media has focused more on the plight of hostages taken by Hamas, in the worst single attack on Jews since the Holocaust.

In this atmosphere, for B'Tselem's Israeli staff members to come to the stark conclusion that their own country was guilty of genocide was emotionally challenging, said Yuli Novak, the organisation's executive director.

"It's really incomprehensible, it's a phenomena that the mind cannot bear," Novak said, choking up.

"I think many of our colleagues are struggling at the moment, not only fear of sanctions but also to fully grasp this thing."

Guy Shalev, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, said the organisation faced a "wall of denial".

It has been under pressure for months and is expecting a stronger backlash after releasing its report.

"Bureaucratic, legal, financial institutions such as banks freezing accounts including ours, and some of the challenges we expect to see in the next days...these efforts will intensify," he told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Maayan Lubell; Writing by Michael Georgy;Editing by Ros Russell)