Crimes Against Humanity

In July 2026, Amnesty International disseminated a statement claiming, “Israel is committing genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.” Amnesty International has also published several reports, including “Palestinian Lives in Peril as Israel reinforces apartheid”, which perpetuate the accusation that Israel is committing “crimes against humanity.” These statements rely on specific actions directed by the Israeli government, despite evidence that some of these actions may have been undertaken for purposes permitted under international law, including:

1. Failure to Establish Knowledge of the Attack: In the landmark case, Prosecutor v. Kunarac, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) held that there are two elements that comprise a crime against humanity, “(i) the commission of an act which, by its nature or consequences, is objectively part of the attack” and “(ii) the Accused’s knowledge that there is an attack on a civilian population and that his act is part of that attack (mens rea).” In The Prosecutor v. Clément Kayishema and Obed Ruzindana, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) held that “Part of what transforms an individual’s act(s) into a crime against humanity is the inclusion of the act within a greater dimension of criminal conduct.” Amnesty International assumes that perpetrators have the requisite knowledge to satisfy the element of crimes against humanity. However, it would be nearly impossible for Amnesty International to conclusively establish a particular perpetrator’s subjective knowledge without direct evidence of that individual’s state of mind. NGO Monitor explains that “its employees cannot possibly know the ‘intent’ of the commanders who ordered the attacks.”
2. Lawful Evacuation of Citizens: Amnesty International argues that Israel’s evacuation orders to Gazans amount to a crime against humanity, stating “that forcibly displacing Palestinians within the Gaza Strip or deporting them violates international humanitarian law and constitutes war crimes and crimes against humanity.” However, Israel's evacuation orders satisfy the legal conditions for evacuation. The Geneva Convention of 1949 states, “the Occupying Power may undertake total or partial evacuation of a given area if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demand.” The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) explains that “temporary evacuations may be necessary, and even legally required.” Professor Amichai Cohen explains, “the only viable solution for minimizing civilian casualties is an evacuation of the civilian population from the area.” Amnesty International presents a skewed interpretation of international law by characterizing Israeli civilian evacuation orders as evidence of forcible displacement and crimes against humanity.
3. Movement Restrictions Based on Security Needs: Amnesty International asserts that Israel's "arbitrary restrictions on freedom of movement” make Israelis “responsible for the crime against humanity of apartheid.” However, restrictions on movement are not inherently unlawful or crimes against humanity. Article 12(3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights explains, “The above-mentioned rights shall not be subject to any restrictions except those which are provided by law, are necessary to protect national security, public order (ordre public), public health or morals.”
4. Israel's Security Interests: Amnesty International frequently claims Israel's security measures are a crime against humanity. However, in a report published in 2022, Amnesty contradicts itself by claiming, “Israel has an obligation under international law to protect all persons within its jurisdiction and control from violence.” Yet, the very measures which Israel has imposed to ensure safety, such as “military checkpoints, roadblocks, fences and other structures”, Amnesty International claims are a violation of international law. Salo Aizenberg criticizes Amnesty for presenting “Israel’s restrictions as nothing more than cruelty and apartheid; the notion that these actions might be related to security is inconceivable to Amnesty.”

In February of 2026, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Israel of “escalat[ing] their atrocities in 2025, including … crimes against humanity … against Palestinians.” In 2022, “HRW was a signatory on a letter to the ICC Prosecutor to ‘Urgently expedite his investigation into the Situation of Palestine, including the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.’ For over a decade, HRW has used vast resources to further characterize Israel's conduct as constituting crimes against humanity. However, many argue that what HRW constitutes as crimes against humanity is flawed, particularly because:

1. The Missing Context in HRW’s Crimes Against Humanity Allegations: Founder and President of NGO Monitor, Prof. Gerald Steinberg, argues that HRW “erases the context of terrorism to make false and frequent accusations of ‘war crimes,’ ‘collective punishment,’ ‘indiscriminate mass killing,’ and ‘violations of international law.’” He provides an example from 2006 where “HRW published hundreds of pages attacking Israeli responses to Hezbollah attacks, and glossing over Hezbollah’s aggression and use of human shields.” Consequently, HRW “completely ignores and erases decades of terrorism and the need for counter-terror measures.” International jurisprudence demonstrates that context is an important element in assessing the “Nexus between the attack and acts within the ambit of Article 7(1).” The UK Upper Tribunal held that, “Due regard must be given to the nature of the act, the aims it pursues, and its consequences, in assessing whether the act forms part of a widespread or systematic attack, when considered as a whole.” Consequently, by failing to account for the entire context of Israel's attacks, HRW presents a fragmentary analysis of alleged crimes against humanity.
2. The Nexus Requirement: Distinguishing Human Rights Violations from Crimes Against Humanity: Barrister Joshua Kern and Anne Herzberg, Legal Advisor and UN Representative for NGO Monitor, argue that “the elements of the crime have been broadened by Human Rights Watch and others.” For instance, HRW frequently uses examples of isolated human rights violations to “prove” the element of a “widespread or systemic attack” necessary to satisfy Article 7 of the Rome Statute, crimes against humanity. In 2021, HRW claimed “Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians … they amount to the crime against humanity of persecution under the Rome Statute and customary international law.” However, Herzberg explains that crimes against humanity are “not isolated, random acts of individuals, but rather result from a deliberate attempt to target a civilian population.” Discrimination, whether present or not, does not by itself constitute a crime against humanity. Herzberg explains that for an attack to meet the elements of a crime against humanity, the attack “must have a nexus with a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population.”
3. Conflating Civilian Harm with an Attack Directed Against Civilians: HRW conflates “incidental, target of the attack�� as “evidence” that the civilian population is the “primary object of the attack” Jurisprudence supports that for an attack to be considered a crime against humanity, “the civilian population must be the primary object of the attack and not merely a collateral victim of it.” ) Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Netanyahu, explains, “We have defined the objectives of the war, and they stand firm—to take down the Hamas regime and to bring all our hostages home,” demonstrating that Palestinian civilians are not the object of the attack.
4. Knowledge of Civilian Harm Does Not Establish Knowledge of a Widespread or Systematic Attack: To satisfy the mental element of a crime against humanity, perpetrators must participate in an “attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.” Knowledge that civilian harm will occur does not, by itself, satisfy the knowledge element requirement. Rather, the perpetrator must have knowledge that their acts were part of a “widespread or systematic attack.” HRW regularly assumes the element of knowledge without concrete evidence, failing to differentiate knowledge of civilian harm from knowledge of participation in a widespread or systematic attack. For example, in 2024 HRW claimed that, “ the Israeli authorities had all the coordinates of public water and sanitation infrastructure and were aware that the Mekorot pipelines that run from Israel to Gaza provide the majority of drinking water available in Gaza. Thus, they should have had clear knowledge that the actions they have taken since October 7 would lead to starvation from lack of water.” HRW infers that knowledge of an act's anticipated consequences is legally synonymous with knowledge that one's conduct forms part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against civilians, even though these concepts are analytically distinct.

Evidence: On February 25, 2019, Andrew Wilkie, an independent federal Member of Parliament in Australia, said on the ABC's Q&A program, “The Rome Statute addresses crimes against humanity, and it's a crime against humanity to forcibly transfer anyone to a third country and to detain them indefinitely without trial … We have a series of Australian governments that are guilty of crimes against humanity." These statements align with a series of public concerns, particularly that Australia is committing crimes against humanity in their foreign detention facilities. Despite these allegations, subsequent analysis demonstrates that:

1. Elements of Crimes Against Humanity Not Satisfied: Immigration Lawyer Miho Kitamura explains that “A mental element is required to elevate a crime to a crime against humanity.” Under Article 7 of the Rome Statute, the proscribed acts must be committed “as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.” The Australian government did not invoke immigration policies to inflict harm on civilians: “The Government introduced the Regional Deterrence Framework to combat people smuggling and deter illegal maritime arrivals.” Kitamura asserts, “Although the OTP acknowledged that the offshore detention regime pursued a policy of deterrence, the information did not support a finding that “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment was a deliberate, or purposefully designed aspect of this policy.” In 2020, the ICC Office of the Prosecutor disseminated a letter stating, “the crimes allegedly committed by the Australian authorities... do not appear to satisfy the contextual elements of crimes against humanity under article 7 of the Statute.”
2. Individual Misconduct Did Not Establish a State Policy: Tilman Rodenhäuser, legal adviser at the International Committee of the Red Cross' headquarters, explains that “crimes against humanity require a ‘State or organizational policy’ behind the crimes.” A substantial portion of the conduct characterized as constituting crimes against humanity was allegedly carried out by Wilson Security, a private subcontractor responsible for providing security services at Australia’s offshore detention facilities. For instance, the Government of Australia accepted that in individual cases, “guards had exploited adults and children in exchange for access to shower facilities, that women had been raped, and that adults and children had been physically and sexually assaulted.” Individual instances of abuse did occur, and Australia recognizes these accounts. However, Australia did not have an overarching state policy where facilities were instructed to inflict abuse on detainees; in order to satisfy Article 7, the state or organization's policy must be sufficiently connected to the prohibited acts. The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court asserts, “There is insufficient information at this stage to indicate that the multiple acts of imprisonment or severe deprivation of liberty were committed pursuant to or in furtherance of a State (or organizational) policy to commit an attack.”
3. Government Inaction Did Not Establish an Article 7 Attack: Mathias Holvoet, a lecturer in international criminal law at the University of Amsterdam, argues that “there are strong valid legal reasons to believe the Australian government is responsible for passively encouraging crimes against humanity by deliberately failing to take action.” However, the International Criminal Court held that “the information available at this stage does not provide sufficient support for finding that the failure on the part of the Australian authorities… to take adequate measures to address the conditions of the detentions and treatment of migrants and asylum seekers… or to stop further transfers, was deliberately aimed at encouraging an ‘attack’, within the meaning of article 7.” Further statements from the ICC explain, “it would be entirely inappropriate to assume such intentions from the absence of action.”
4. Lawful State Immigration Policy: The High Court of Australia held that the government lawfully implemented its immigration policies. In Plaintiff M68/2015 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, a Bangladeshi asylum seeker challenged Australia's role in offshore detention facilities. The court held, “that the plaintiff was not entitled to a declaration that the conduct of the first and second defendants in relation to the plaintiff's past detention at the Nauru Regional Processing Centre (‘the Centre’) was unlawful. The majority of the Court held that 198AHA of the Migration Act 1958 (Cth) ("the Act") authorised the Commonwealth's participation, to the extent that the Commonwealth did participate, in the plaintiff's detention. This ruling aligns with international law principles that allow states to control immigration policies. Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard University and international legal scholar, Dr Ioannis Kalpouzos explains, “as a matter of well-established international law and subject to its treaty obligations, a State has the right to control the entry of non-nationals into its territory.” He also argues that, “if such a response contains elements of unlawfulness, even if these elements are widespread, there is too much space to traverse to characterize such actions as an overall ‘attack’ constituting crimes against humanity.”