UN committee charge of Israel genocide ‘unfounded’: US

Israel has denied allegations by Human Rights Watch that it has forcibly displaced Gazans in war actions that amount to ‘crimes against humanity’.

Israeli troops during operations in northern Gaza, amid continuing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. Picture: Israeli Defence Forces / AFP

The United States said it disagreed with a United Nations committee’s finding that Israeli warfare methods were consistent with genocide.

“That is something we would unequivocally disagree with,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said on Thursday.

“We think that that kind of phrasing and those kind of accusations are certainly unfounded.’

Israel on Thursday denied allegations by Human Rights Watch that Israeli forces had forcibly displaced Gazans and that their actions in more than a year of war amount to “crimes against humanity”.

“Time and again, Human Rights Watch’s rhetoric regarding Israel’s conduct in Gaza is completely false and detached from reality,” foreign ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said on X.

In a report published on Thursday, the New York-based rights group said it had “amassed evidence that Israeli officials are … committing the war crime of forcible transfer”.

“Statements by senior officials with command responsibility show that forced displacement is intentional and forms part of Israeli state policy and therefore amount to a crime against humanity,” Human Rights Watch added.

HRW said the 172-page report’s findings were based on interviews with displaced Gazans, satellite imagery, and public reporting conducted until August 2024.

“Contrary to claims in HRW’s report, Israel’s efforts are directed solely at dismantling Hamas’s terror capabilities and not at the people of Gaza,” said Marmorstein.

Patel said he also took issue with the allegation that Israel had committed “crimes against humanity”.

Forced displacement of Palestinians “would be a red line” for the United States and inconsistent with principles laid out at the start of the war by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Group of Seven allies, he said.

“It is wholly consistent and acceptable to ask civilians to evacuate a certain area while they are conducting certain military operations, and then for them to be able to go home,” Patel said.

“We have not seen any kind of specific force displacement.”

Displaced Palestinian children from the Gaza Strip, sleep on the ground as they and others are camped in the grounds of the al-Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. Picture: Mahmud Hams / AFP

Marmorstein also charged that Palestinian militant group Hamas “uses civilians as human shields and embeds terror infrastructure within residential areas”.

“Israel will continue to operate in accordance with the law of armed conflict,” the spokesman added.

According to the United Nations, 1.9 million Palestinians were displaced in Gaza as of October 2024. Before the start of the war on October 7, 2023, the territory’s official population was 2.4 million people.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after Hamas’s unprecedented attack that resulted in the deaths of 1206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures which includes hostages killed in captivity.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed at least 43,736 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.