'You Feel Like You Are Subhuman': Israel's Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza

On 5 December 2024, Amnesty International published ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, stating that its research “has found sufficient basis to conclude that Israel has committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip.” The report examines Israel’s conduct in Gaza between October 2023 and early July 2024 against the three genocidal acts it found established under Article II of the Genocide Convention: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction.

The report’s title is taken from the testimony of a Palestinian in Gaza, and the finding it frames is a finding about dehumanisation. Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, stated on publication: “Month after month, Israel has treated Palestinians in Gaza as a subhuman group unworthy of human rights and dignity, demonstrating its intent to physically destroy them.” Anticipating the most common objection to a genocide finding — that Israel’s stated objective was the destruction of Hamas — Callamard addressed it directly: “Israel has repeatedly argued that its actions in Gaza are lawful and can be justified by its military goal to eradicate Hamas. But genocidal intent can co-exist alongside military goals and does not need to be Israel’s sole intent.”

The determination has been contested by other lawyers. In an analysis published on Just Security on 16 December 2024, Amichai Cohen of the Israel Democracy Institute and Yuval Shany, who holds the Hersch Lauterpacht Chair in International Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, argued that the finding “requires a higher standard of proof than the report contains, both with regard to the actus reus and the mens rea.” Recording that disagreement is part of using the report accurately: Amnesty’s conclusion is an expert human-rights determination, not a judicial ruling.

Why it matters

• The first time in Amnesty International’s history that the organisation has concluded a state under investigation is committing genocide.
• Its central evidentiary thread is dehumanisation — the treatment of a protected group as “subhuman” — argued as evidence of intent rather than as rhetoric.
• It squarely answers the “military objective” defence with the established principle that genocidal intent need not be a state’s sole intent.

Key resources

• Full report: ‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’ (Amnesty International, 5 December 2024)
• Announcement and statements by Agnès Callamard
• Amichai Cohen and Yuval Shany, critical observations on the report (Just Security, 16 December 2024)