Former Israeli attorney general Michael Ben-Yair said that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
“Jews, who went through a genocide 80 years ago, are committing genocide in Gaza,” Ben-Yair, writing on X on Tuesday, said.
“Shame, rage and sorrow,” he added.
His comment was a caption to a news report by Haaretz on two leading Israeli human rights organisations, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHRI), calling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide on Monday.
While global human rights bodies like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have been using genocide to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza for several months now, the report marks the first time an Israeli organisation has formally used the word.
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In its report, B’Tselem examined Israel’s policies in Gaza and statements made by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders on its goals in the enclave.
“Explicit attempt to destroy the population of Gaza and impose living conditions so catastrophic that Palestinian society cannot continue to exist there. That is the exact definition of genocide,” B’tselem said.
Meanwhile, PHRI’s report presented a detailed legal analysis of Israel’s war on Gaza, focusing on the dismantling of Gaza’s healthcare system.
Israel has killed more than 60,000 Palestinians and wounded over 145,000 others since 7 October 2025, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
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Ben-Yair’s remarks align with a growing number of former Israeli officials who have publicly criticised their country’s conduct in Gaza.
In May, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – himself accused of overseeing war crimes during conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon in 2006 – described Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government as a “criminal gang”.
He accused it of implementing starvation tactics in Gaza and warned that its actions risked amounting to ethnic cleansing.
Writing in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Olmert stated: “What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians.”
Ben-Yair in 2022 said his country is an “apartheid regime” and urged the international community to recognise this reality and hold Israel accountable.
Famine warning
Israel has also imposed a blockade and prevented humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, leading to dozen of deaths from starvation.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global hunger watchdog, said on Tuesday that two out of three famine thresholds for food consumption have been breached across most of Gaza.
“The worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip,” IPC said in its latest alert.
“Mounting evidence shows that widespread starvation, malnutrition, and disease are driving a rise in hunger-related deaths,” the global body made up of UN agencies, humanitarian bodies, and aid groups, said.
While the IPC has not formally declared a famine, it confirmed it would begin an immediate assessment.
According to the organisation, famine is declared when at least 20 percent of the population faces extreme food shortages, one in three children suffers from acute malnutrition, and the daily death rate reaches two per 10,000 people due to hunger or related illnesses.
“Immediate action must be taken to end the hostilities and allow unimpeded, large-scale, life-saving humanitarian response,” the IPC warned.
“This is the only path to stopping further deaths and catastrophic human suffering.”
‘Worst-case scenario of famine unfolding in Gaza,’ declares global hunger monitor
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Israeli-imposed starvation has killed 147 Palestinians, including 88 children, since October 2023. Local officials say 40,000 infants are at risk of imminent death as formula shortage threatens babies in Gaza.
Since May, Israeli forces have also shot dead more than 1,000 Palestinian civilians while attempting to receive aid, most of them at sites operated by Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US and Israel backed agency.
The Gaza-based Government Media Office has accused Israel of “engineering starvation” through “systematic disorder” in Gaza.
More than 100 international human rights and humanitarian organisations last week called for an end to the siege, citing widespread starvation affecting their staff.
