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Amnesty International’s ‘Genocide’ Slur About Israel Is a Complete Lie

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant during a press conference in the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Israel, Oct. 28, 2023. Photo: ABIR SULTAN POOL/Pool via REUTERS
Amnesty International wants us to believe that Israel has tried (but dramatically failed) to destroy the Palestinians population of the Gaza Strip.
These words — tried, destroy, population — aren’t figures of speech. The group alleges that the Jewish State’s actual intent was to physically or biologically destroy the roughly two million Palestinians living in that territory, erasing that group as a separate and distinct entity.
This is the distillation of Amnesty’s recent report accusing the Jewish State of “genocide” in the war that began with Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.
If this sounds like an absurd way to describe the unquestionably destructive war — a uniquely challenging overlap of urban and subterranean warfare, fought against a barbaric and antisemitic enemy, in which the estimated rate of civilian casualties appears to be well below that from the US-led campaign to dislodge Saddam Hussein — then wait until you see how Amnesty defends its “genocide” slur.
The relevant international convention defines genocide as a specific set of devastating acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”
Clearly, there has been no such destruction. So Amnesty’s accusation hinges on “intent,” with its report citing, as proof of genocidal intent, supposedly incriminating comments by top Israeli officials.
After the Hamas slaughter of 1,200 people in October 2023, for example, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited the Biblical commandment to “remember what Amalek did to you.” With these words, he “called for the total destruction of Gaza, making no distinction between civilians and Hamas as a military target,” insists Amnesty.
Incredibly, the organization then immediately admits it doesn’t actually know what those words mean: “It is unclear from these statements alone whether Prime Minister Netanyahu intended only to refer to the verses of the Bible that are an injunction to remember the acts of the people of Amalek,” which they source to Deuteronomy, “or also to allude to those passages that call for the people of Amalek to be attacked and for none of them, not even children, to be spared,” which they source to Samuel.
Notwithstanding Amnesty’s performance, it is perfectly clear which verse Netanyahu quoted. The words don’t appear in Samuel. They do appear in Deuteronomy. (And not just there. The purportedly “genocidal” call to Remember Amalek — essentially a Biblical precursor to “Never Forget” — also appears in the pleas of Holocaust victims, the memoirs of Holocaust survivors, in Yad Vashem, and on other Holocaust memorials.)
Amnesty likewise claims that Netanyahu showed genocidal intent by describing, just after the Oct. 7 massacre, a war between the children of light and children of darkness. This, claims the report, was “an apparent reference to Palestinians in Gaza,” and thus “racist and dehumanizing.”
But it was not a reference to Palestinians.
“[W]e have gone to war, the purpose of which is to destroy the brutal and murderous Hamas-ISIS enemy, bring back our hostages and restore the security to our country, our citizens and our children,” said Netanyahu. “This is a war between the children of light and the children of darkness.”
Amnesty pulls the same stunt with Yoav Gallant’s reference to children of darkness, though he, too, used the phrase in reference to the fight against Hamas: “We will reach all the terror infrastructure. We will reach all the tunnels. We will reach all the Hamas operatives.” Clearly, this is not evidence of genocide.
Maybe Gallant’s reference to fighting “human animals” was? According to Amnesty, it was “dehumanizing language” that implies Palestinians, as a whole, are “subhuman.”
But if President Joe Biden referred to Hamas as “animals,” if relatives of hostages referred to Hamas as “human monsters” and “savages,” and if other world leaders referred to Hamas as “inhuman” “beasts” and “animals,” is there any indication that Gallant meant something different? To the contrary. He has consistently made clear that the fight is against Hamas, and that the “animals” are Hamas.
Surely, at least, Isaac Herzog “implied that all Palestinians in Gaza were legitimate targets,” as claimed in Amnesty’s report?
In a briefing just after the Oct 7 attack, Israeli President Herzog did respond to a journalist’s question by charging that “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible; it’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved.” But did those words mean Israel viewed all Palestinians as “legitimate targets”?
We can find the answer in the very same briefing: “We are very cautious in the way we operate,” Herzog said. “The IDF uses all the means at its disposal in order to reduce harm to the population. For example, many resources are invested in gathering intelligence and in trying to locate the enemy separately from civilian population, in evacuating the civilian population from the center of the battle, in warning citizens, in monitoring [the] humanitarian situation.”
Herzog was even asked if his harsher comment meant to imply that Palestinians legitimate targets. “No, I didn’t say that. I did not say that. I want to make it clear.”
Clear enough. But it was not clear enough for Amnesty, which strained to rescue its case that these comments by Herzog, Gallant, and Netanyahu are proof of genocide. But Herzog knew his harsh words would be broadcast, Amnesty said — as if he didn’t equally know his words about protecting civilians would be broadcast. But Netanyahu referred to a “commandment” about Amalek — though the verse from Deuteronomy about remembrance is indeed a Biblical commandment, and though the belligerent verse from Samuel is not.
It is telling that Amnesty flails to this absurd extent. And it is even more telling that the flailing represents Amnesty’s best shot.
Gilead Ini is a Senior Research Analyst at CAMERA, the foremost media watchdog organization focused on coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
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Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi lays a wreath as he visits the burial site of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon, June 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
A member of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli air strike on Tehran alongside a member of an Iran-aligned Iraqi armed group, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters and the Iraqi group said on Saturday.
The source identified the Hezbollah member as Abu Ali Khalil, who had served as a bodyguard for Hezbollah’s slain chief Hassan Nasrallah. The source said Khalil had been on a religious pilgrimage to Iraq when he met up with a member of the Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada group.
They traveled together to Tehran and were both killed in an Israeli strike there, along with Khalil’s son, the senior security source said. Hezbollah has not joined in Iran’s air strikes against Israel from Lebanon.
Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada published a statement confirming that both the head of its security unit and Khalil had been killed in an Israeli strike.
Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli aerial attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs in September.
Israel and Iran have been trading strikes for nine consecutive days since Israel launched attacks on Iran, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran has said it does not seek nuclear weapons.
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Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip

Israeli soldiers operate during a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, July 3, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in cooperation with the General Security Service (Shin Bet), announced on Friday the killing of Ibrahim Abu Shamala, a senior financial official in Hamas’ military wing.
The operation took place on June 17th in the central Gaza Strip.
Abu Shamala held several key positions, including financial officer for Hamas’ military wing and assistant to Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing until his elimination in March 2024.
He was responsible for managing all the financial resources of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, overseeing the planning and execution of the group’s war budget. This involved handling and smuggling millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip to fund Hamas’ military operations.
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Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei named three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him should he be killed, the New York Times reported on Saturday citing unnamed Iranian officials. It is understood the Ayatollah fears he could be assassinated in the coming days.
Khamenei reportedly mostly speaks with his commanders through a trusted aide now, suspending electronic communications.
Khamenei has designated three senior religious figures as candidates to replace him as well as choosing successors in the military chain of command in the likely event that additional senior officials be eliminated.
Earlier on Saturday Israel confirmed the elimination of Saeed Izadi and Bhanam Shahriari.
Shahriari, head of Iran’s Quds Force Weapons Transfer Unit, responsible for arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, was killed in an Israeli airstrike over 1,000 km from Israel in western Iran.
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