Do Israel's military actions in Gaza since October 7th, 2023 constitute a genocide?

This legal question turns on how international courts and experts define genocide — I'll gather the latest rulings and reports to assess it.

Whether Israel's military actions in Gaza since October 7, 2023 constitute genocide is contested and has not received a final binding determination from an international court as of 2025-2026. The answer depends on interpretation of the legal definition of genocide and on disputed questions of intent and evidence.

1. Legal definition of genocide

Under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, genocide requires specific intent (dolus specialis) to destroy a protected group "in whole or in part".

The Convention defines genocide as:

> In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
> (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

Acts such as killings, causing severe harm, or creating conditions aimed at group destruction only qualify as genocide when accompanied by this intent. This "intent to destroy" element has been the decisive hurdle in past cases, such as the ICJ's Bosnia v. Serbia (2007) ruling.

A determination therefore requires proving both the prohibited acts and the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a group.

2. Background to the military actions

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which resulted in around 1,200 deaths and 251 hostages.

Since then, Gaza's Health Ministry figures — cited by news organizations and relayed by UN agencies — have placed the cumulative Palestinian death toll in the high sixty thousands as of November 2025, with sample tallies reported as 69,169; 69,733; 69,756; and 69,785 in different briefings, and over 70,000 in later updates. The figures are cited regularly by the UN in its reporting but remain disputed regarding breakdown between civilians and combatants and independent verification.

3. Findings and arguments that the actions do constitute genocide

Several international bodies, human rights organizations and scholar groups have concluded the threshold for genocide has been met:

a) International Court of Justice (ICJ) - South Africa v. Israel:
On December 29, 2023, South Africa filed a case alleging Israel is violating the Genocide Convention, specifically asking the ICJ — the principal judicial organ of the UN — to rule that Israel's conduct in Gaza breaches the 1948 Convention.

In 2024 the Court issued three orders of provisional measures (26 January, 28 March and 24 May), directing Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent acts prohibited by the Convention and to enable humanitarian aid.

In its 26 January 2024 order the ICJ found that the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide and related prohibited acts under the Genocide Convention was plausible, requiring binding provisional measures to protect this right from irreparable prejudice.

The ICJ confirmed the plausibility of South Africa's charge that “Israel has engaged in, is engaging in, and risks further engaging in, genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza” and ordered Israel to prevent genocidal acts and ensure provision of food, water, medicine and other humanitarian needs.

b) UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry:
An independent commission of inquiry established by the UN Human Rights Council concluded in September 2025 that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. On September 16, 2025, the Commission declared Israel's current occupation of the Gaza Strip a genocide, and released a report concluding that Israel is failing to prevent and is actively committing genocide against Palestinians. The Commission found Israel guilty of four out of five acts specified in Article 2 of the 1948 Convention. The Commission said "The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza".

Israel rejects that finding.

c) UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese:
In March 2024, she reported to the UN Human Rights Council that Israel's actions in Gaza amounted to genocide. On July 3, 2025, she said "Israel is responsible for one of the cruelest genocides in modern history". Her reports titled "Anatomy of a Genocide" (July 1, 2024) and "Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime" (October 2025) argue that systematic abuse constitutes evidence of genocidal intent under Article II.

d) Human rights organizations:
Amnesty International's investigation concluded that Israel had "committed and is continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip", asserting that Israeli forces had committed three of five acts prohibited under the Convention, "namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and" [inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about destruction].

Human Rights Watch is described as the second major rights group in a month to use the word genocide after Amnesty, finding that Israel has inflicted conditions of life in Gaza calculated to destroy the enclave's Palestinian population. HRW said "What we have found is that the Israeli government is intentionally killing Palestinians in Gaza by denying them the water that they need to survive".

e) Scholar association:
On August 31, 2025, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) passed a resolution stating that the legal criteria have been met to establish that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. More than 80% of the 500-member IAGS voted in favor, with other reporting noting 86% of those who voted among the 500-member association backed the resolution declaring Israel's policies and actions had met the legal definition set out in Article II. The resolution lists systematic, indiscriminate and deliberate attacks on civilians, on homes, on hospitals.

These findings cite evidence including killings, serious harm, conditions of life, mass displacement, attacks on hospitals and health workers and restricted access to health care, and statements by some senior Israeli officials that are presented as evidence of genocidal intent.

4. Findings and arguments that the actions do not constitute genocide or that a determination is premature

a) Israel's official position:
Israel strongly and consistently denies all genocide allegations. Its government has called the ICJ proceedings politically motivated and rejects the ICC's jurisdiction. The IDF claims its military campaign is aimed exclusively at Hamas and asserts it takes extensive measures to minimize civilian casualties, including issuing evacuation warnings.

Israel is described as not seeking to destroy the Palestinian people or population of Gaza, with leaders repeatedly asserting the campaign is solely against Hamas. One summary of Israel's argument is that "Israel's war is against Hamas" and that "Acting in self-defense by engaging in a war against an existential threat is not the same as 'intent to destroy, in whole or in part' the Palestinian people". Netanyahu argued "Israel didn't commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide", citing Hamas's October 7 attack as genocidal intent against Israelis.

b) The limited meaning of the ICJ's 2024 ruling:
The ICJ's provisional-measures order was not a final determination that genocide had occurred; it was a binding recognition that the rights asserted under the Convention were plausible and that urgent measures were required. The order is not a verdict on the allegation — that judgment is not expected for years.

Then-President of the Court Joan Donoghue clarified that the court did not rule that the claim of genocide was plausible but rather that Palestinians in Gaza had a plausible right to be protected from genocide and were at "real and imminent risk of irreparable damage". Legal analyses note the distinction between "plausible genocide" and the ICJ's plausibility test to preserve rights before a full hearing, which is not a final determination of the merits. The main genocide case is not expected to be heard in full until late 2029.

c) Criticism of genocide conclusions:
Critics argue the scale of suffering, while large, reflects a war scenario with a defined military objective (destroying Hamas) rather than a state policy aimed at destruction of an entire group, and that "A crucial difference between war as tragedy and war as genocide is intent... In this war, only one side intended to commit genocide, and that is Hamas".

Regarding the IAGS resolution, critics noted only about 28% of IAGS members voted (with 86% of voters approving), yet media portrayed it as consensus, and raised questions about methodology, evidentiary thresholds for intent — including that Amnesty used a lower evidentiary threshold for intent than the ICJ itself applies — and reliance on data cited by critics as biased or Hamas-sourced.

Israel's ambassador said the U.N.'s claims spread a "malicious genocide narrative…serving Hamas and its supporters" and that the report was based on misinformation spread by Hamas.

5. Current legal status

In short, as of late 2025, multiple UN-affiliated experts, commissions and major human rights groups have concluded that Israel's actions meet the legal definition of genocide, while the Israeli government, some legal scholars and states contest that conclusion, arguing the specific intent to destroy Palestinians as a group has not been established and that the only court empowered to rule definitively — the ICJ — has so far issued only a provisional plausibility finding and will not decide the merits for several years.