A new report offers the most compelling debunking yet of the common accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The 311-page study by the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies (BESA), an independent nonpartisan Israeli think-tank, bases its findings on statistical facts rather than opinions via a forensic examination of IDF tactics, casualty figures, food truck deliveries and UN reports. It argues convincingly that there is no evidence to suggest a systematic Israeli policy of targeting or massacring civilians and no evidence that aerial bombing was a part of a genocidal policy of killing innocent Palestinians. The authors studied the amounts of IDF armaments used and patterns of bombings taking into account the Hamas policy of using Palestinians as human shields and the IDF warnings given prior to most attacks. On the ground it finds that, in sharp contrast to historical examples of genocide in other conflicts, there is no credible forensic evidence to substantiate claims of close-range mass killings of civilians or executions of helpless non-combatants in Gaza which would be a part of any genocide.
The strength of this report and what gives it more credibility than previous reports on the subject is that it is not a pro-Israeli or a pro-Palestinian whitewash. It does not seek to diminish or ignore the severe human suffering in Gaza, nor does it seek to downplay the rhetoric or policy failures of the Israeli government. Indeed, it accepts that the IDF has at times committed war crimes and unjustified killings in Gaza but says the overwhelming weight of evidence indicates that these examples are ‘outliers’ and not part of any sanctioned policy. “There is no evidence to suggest a systematic Israeli policy of targeting or massacring civilians,’ “Debunking the Genocide Allegations: A Re-examination of the Israel-Hamas War,’ states. “Throughout our research, we have reviewed forensic evidence that may indicate war crimes committed by individual IDF soldiers. However, those who accuse Israel of genocide erroneously suggest that most civilian casualties in Gaza were entirely unjustified from a military standpoint, portraying those cases in which deaths do seem unjustified not as outliers but as part of a broader, systematic, and deliberate policy of extermination by the IDF.”
“The small number of instances involving persuasive supportive evidence of intentional killings by military personnel does not support this accusation.” The 1948 UN Genocide Convention, which was adopted following the mass murder of Jews by Nazi Germany, defines genocide as crimes committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. The BESA report also addresses claims that Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza, especially in the early stages of the conflict, was so indiscriminate that it amounted to genocide. “We have found no evidence to support claims of deliberate bombing of civilians by the IDF during the war, nor any indication of carpet bombing intended to inflict mass civilian casualties in Gaza,’ the report stated. “While we did identify a significant number of tragic cases where innocent civilians were killed, some of which raise concerns about negligence, lack of caution, or even disregard for human life, it is clear that the IDF has employed numerous protective measures to minimise “collateral damage”.
Some of these precautions are unprecedented in global military history and have come at a significant cost to the IDF, particularly in terms of losing military advantages such as the element of surprise.’ “In our research, we conducted a meticulous analysis of the quantities of IDF armaments used, comparing them to examples from other war zones, and we demonstrate that these do not support any pattern of indiscriminate bombings.” The report argues that while IDF bombing has caused much devastation in Gaza, Hamas has greatly contributed to this by booby-trapping a vast number of buildings in the strip. Although the report does not try to deny the fact that the civilian death toll in Gaza has been horrendous, it examines the distortions and falsehoods of the casualty figures provided by the Hamas-controlled Gazan Health Ministry which says more than 60,000 people have died in Gaza (the GHM figures do not distinguish civilians from combatants.)
“Hamas has consistently sought to present the highest possible civilian fatality count and has directed its health ministry to manipulate data. This includes concealing natural mortality figures, relying on dubious ‘media reports’ to inflate the number of women and children among the casualties,” the report says. “A detailed statistical analysis shows that the frequently cited claim that 70 per cent of war casualties are women and children is incorrect, even according to the GMOH’s own data – and was false from the very beginning of the war,” it says. The report says that while claims made about Gaza by human rights organisations should not be automatically dismissed, it points out systemic weaknesses in the way many of these UN-affiliated organisations collate and interpret data, leading to false or greatly exaggerated reports about casualties and humanitarian conditions. Using a comparison of food trucks entering Gaza before and after the October 7, 2023, massacre, the report challenges the widely held assumption that there were famine-like conditions prior to March this year, when Israel halted aid into Gaza.
It says that claims by the UN, repeated by international media, that Gaza required 500 aid trucks daily of which 150 needed to be food trucks, became accepted wisdom. But in truth, during 2022, before the war in Gaza and before any claims about famine or hunger, an average of 292 trucks entered Gaza each day of which just 73 were food trucks. It says since the start of the war until January this year, an average of more than 82 food trucks entered Gaza. However, the report “strongly criticises” the Israeli government’s decision in March this year to halt aid supplies to Gaza. It also says it was wrong for Israel to block traditional aid supplies before the new and controversial aid-distribution method – the Gaza Humanitarian Fund – was up and running. The report only covers the period until June 1 this year, and so it does not assess the most dramatic period of hunger and humanitarian crisis in Gaza which has occurred over the past four months.
The findings of this report are contested by other reports. A resolution passed by the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) this week claimed that Israel’s conduct in Gaza meets the legal definition as laid out in the UN convention on genocide. The debate about whether a genocide is being committed in Gaza will continue, not least because pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups will seek to adopt the “facts” which suit their biases. But the BESA report is one of the most comprehensive research-based reports yet compiled on the Gaza war. Its central argument that Israel, despite its mistakes in Gaza, it is not guilty of anything approaching a genocide, in theory, policy or practice is compelling and persuasive.
Source: CBNNews
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