And we’ve seen it before. In 1915, the Ottomans marched over a million Armenians into the Syrian desert. In 1994, Rwandan broadcasters called Tutsis “cockroaches” as machetes cleared neighborhoods faster than the signal could fade. In Srebrenica, 1995, Serb forces separated 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, shot them in batches, and bulldozed the graves. Survivors kept only their shoes.
Each of these was declared genocide—not because of how many died, but because of why.
Genocide doesn’t mean many. It means deliberate.
Which brings us back to Gaza.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas militants crossed the Israeli border, killing over 1,200 people and abducting more than 200, many of them civilians . Human Rights Watch and other observers documented war crimes: executions, kidnappings, and indiscriminate attacks.
What followed was not just retaliation. It was reengineering.
Within days, Israel imposed what Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called a “complete siege.” “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel,” he declared. “We are fighting human animals” . The siege was not metaphorical. Gaza’s sole power plant shut down within a week. Hospitals lost oxygen. Incubators stopped humming. That same week, Lina’s hospital ran dry. Her oxygen mask failed at 2:14 a.m.
Evacuation orders were issued to civilians in north Gaza. Then the convoys were bombed . Displaced families sought refuge in UN shelters—then those were struck as well . By July 2025, the UN estimated that more than 90% of Gaza’s population had been displaced . But nowhere was designated safe. That was not speculation—it was the Red Cross.
The shelters became tombs. The roads became traps.
Food collapsed next. According to Human Rights Watch, Israel used starvation as a weapon—denying fuel for bakeries, blocking humanitarian shipments, and bombing water infrastructure . Over a million children are now classified by UNICEF as “catastrophically malnourished” .
This is not just suffering. It’s structure.
Under the Genocide Convention, five acts can constitute genocide: killing group members, causing serious physical or mental harm, inflicting destructive living conditions, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children . Gaza, by multiple legal assessments, now qualifies on at least four.
Still, the legal debate continues. Some scholars argue that genocidal intent is difficult to prove; that Hamas embeds in civilian zones; that military operations, however brutal, are not aimed at group eradication. Others—UN rapporteurs, former ICC investigators, genocide scholars—argue that the pattern, scale, and open rhetoric leave little ambiguity .
And rhetoric, here, matters.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for the “voluntary resettlement” of Palestinians in third countries, adding that “no Hamas, no UNRWA, no Gaza” should remain . National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir declared that Gaza should host Israeli settlements, not Palestinians . Likud MK Nissim Vaturi said, “This should be permanent.” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated in March 2025 that Palestinians would not be allowed to return to the north: “The north is cleared” .
The implication is not subtle. Gaza is not just being depopulated. It is being redrawn.