TRANSCRIPT:
It's been 14 months since the cross-border attacks on October 7 which saw Hamas kill 12 hundred people and take 250 hostages.
Since then, Israel has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Amnesty International has now released a report concluding that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
Israel has consistently denied accusation it is committing genocide - but Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard says the evidence is clear.
"We do not come to that conclusion lightly, politically or preferentially. We studied Israel's many actions in Gaza closely and in their totality. We took into account their simultaneous occurrence and re-occurrence. Their immediate impact, and their cumulative and mutually reinforcing consequences. It is clear that Israel has committed three of the five acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention."
The term 'genocide' is legally defined in the 1948 Genocide Convention as "acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group".
Under the convention the acts that constitute genocide fall into five categories:
- Killing members of the group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, in whole or in part.
These are the acts Ms Callamard says Amnesty International is accusing Israel of committing.
"But the existence of those acts alone is not sufficient to meet the Genocide Convention threshold. We have further determined, crucially, that Israel committed those actions with the clear intent to destroy Palestinians In Gaza."
The remaining two include imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Amnesty International has not accused Israel of these acts.
The Israeli Defence Force has said in a statement that the claims presented in the report are "entirely baseless" and fail to account for operational realities on the ground.
A spokesperson says the IDF adheres to its obligations under international law and takes all feasible measures to mitigate harm to civilians, including by providing advanced warnings before attacks and facilitating the moment of civilians to designated safe zones.
The IDF spokesperson also repeated assertions Hamas is using civilians as human shields.
SBS News approached the Israeli Ambassador to Australia, Amir Maimon, requesting an interview, but he was unavailable.
The Palestinian Ambassador to Australia, Izzat Abdulhadi, says he welcomes Amnesty International's report.
"This report has a lot of evidence about genocide in Gaza, and I think the countries which signed the Genocide Convention 1948 should adhere to the finding of this report and take the necessary actions against Israel, including sanction on Israel."
Amnesty International's accusation of genocide adds to growing international pressure on Israel.
The International Court of Justice has found it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide based on evidence presented by South Africa, which brought the case.
That case has since been joined by a number of other countries, including Spain, Ireland, Colombia and Bolivia.
Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence Minister Yoav Gallant, along with a number of Hamas leaders.
The International Court of Justice has not ruled that Israel is committing genocide, however, it did call for preliminary measures to prevent a potential genocide.
Among these was an insistence in May that Israel must halt its assault on Rafah - which Amnesty International advisor Kristine Beckerle raised in a press conference [[on 5 December]].
"Knowing this, the Israeli authorities attacked Rafah anyway. The ICJ ordered Israel to stop. Israel continued. The damage and destruction to objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, the mass forced displacement of Palestinians in inhumane conditions, and the denial and obstruction of essential services and life saving supplies had cumulative compounding and disastrous impacts."
On releasing its report, Amnesty International has acknowledged atrocities have been committed by Hamas, notably on October 7, and repeated earlier denunciation of those crimes.
The human rights group also says it has documented and denounced Hamas co-location among civilians, and called for the release of all hostages.
Agnes Callamard says this does not justify Israel's conduct.
"Let me be clear. Military objectives can co-exist with genocidal intent, and the military objective of destruction of Hamas does not justify, excuse in any way, or make permissible the genocide of the Palestinians of Gaza."
A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade meanwhile has re-iterated Australia's longstanding position that the question of whether genocide is being committed is a matter for the appropriate courts and tribunals.
The spokesperson says Australia is closely monitoring proceedings in the International Court of Justice and respects its importance and independence in upholding international law.
