Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that Israel has caused the deaths of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by denying them clean water, which legally constitutes an act of genocide and extermination.
"This policy, implemented as part of the mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, implies that the Israeli authorities have committed crimes against humanity, of extermination, that are still ongoing. This policy also constitutes an 'act of genocide' under the Genocide Convention of 1948" , states the Human Rights Watch report.
Israel has repeatedly denied accusations of genocide, saying it has respected international law and that it has the right to defend itself after the attack by Hamas on October 7, which sparked the war, A2 reports.
In a statement on Platform X, Israel's Foreign Ministry wrote: "The truth is the complete opposite of HRW's lies ," adding that Israel has enabled the continuous supply of water and aid to Gaza.
Although the report describes the denial of water as an act of genocide, it also states that in order to prove the crime of genocide against Israeli officials, their intent for such an act must be determined. The report refers to the statements of some senior Israeli officials, which it says suggest that they " want to destroy the Palestinians", which means that denying them water "could constitute the crime of genocide" .
"What we found is that the Israeli government is deliberately killing Palestinians in Gaza by denying them the water they need to survive ," said HRW's Middle East director, Lama Fakih.
In response to the report, Israel said it has ensured that its water infrastructure remains operational. He said international partners had sent shipments of water through Israeli border crossings, including last week, and that Israel had facilitated the entry of more than 1.2 million tons of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
The army said 2,500 trucks carrying more than 51,000 tons of water have entered Gaza since the start of the war and that it has built three water pipelines and facilitated the construction of two additional ones that were donated by the United Arab Emirates.
In addition, a desalination plant with a production capacity of 20,000 cubic meters of water per day, located in the southern city of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip, continues to be operational, according to Israeli security sources.
Human Rights Watch is the second major human rights organization within the last month to use the word genocide to describe Israel's actions in Gaza. The organization 'Amnesty International' in its latest report said that Israel was committing genocide.
Both reports come just weeks after the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister on suspicion of war crimes and crimes against humanity. They denied the charges.
The 1948 Genocide Convention, which was adopted after the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust, defined the crime of genocide as "acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group " .
Human Rights Watch says that Israel stopped the supply of water and electricity to Gaza and restricted the amount of fuel in the territory, making it impossible for Gaza to use its water supply.
Palestinians in many parts of Gaza have access to only a few liters of water a day, which is far less than the minimum of 15 liters a day needed to survive, according to the organization./Voice of America (A2 Televizion)
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