Beyond Accountability Legal Analysis of the Occupying Power`s Policy of Impunity by Addameer

In light of the definition of genocide as outlined in Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, “genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

This definition was subsequently embraced by Article 6 of the Rome Statute. Consequently, the Israeli actions against Palestinian prisoners fulfill the criteria of this crime, particularly as the Israeli occupation strategies now focus on prisoners as members of the Palestinian national group, amidst a broader framework of collective punishment and systematic starvation. Acts of torture and other forms of ill-treatment have been employed as genocidal acts, particularly in relation to the situation in the Gaza Strip.