The United Nations Genocide Convention includes “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part” among the acts that can constitute genocide.

South Africa made this specific prohibition central to its case against Israel before the International Court of Justice. While a final ruling on the merits may take years, the ICJ has already ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts prohibited by the Convention, prevent and punish direct and public incitement to commit genocide, enable humanitarian aid to enter Gaza, and preserve evidence.

The scale of destruction in Gaza has led Israeli human-rights organizations and scholars to conclude that Israel is deliberately creating conditions incompatible with Palestinian life in the Gaza Strip. It also raises the question of whether the United States, through weapons transfers and diplomatic protection, is complicit in genocide.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel issued a July 2025 report titled Destruction of Conditions of Life: A Health Analysis of the Gaza Genocide. It concludes:

“Though Israel has cited military necessity … the scale, pattern, and nature of the operations, as well as accompanying statements, indicate a broader policy aimed at destroying Palestinian society in Gaza and making the enclave uninhabitable.”

The report argues that the targeted destruction of hospitals, obstruction of medical aid, and the killing and detention of over 1,800 health care workers reveal a “deliberate and systematic dismantling of Gaza’s health and life-sustaining systems.”

Israeli architect Eyal Weizman makes a related argument in his 2026 book, Ungrounding: The Architecture of Genocide. He documents how Israel’s demolition of Gaza has made the territory unrecognizable and unlivable.

Weizman describes Gaza’s systematic destruction: “[M]ost of the Gaza Strip—cities, refugee camps, schools, universities, mosques, the health infrastructure, agriculture, wells and the soil itself—has been destroyed and made toxic by bombs, artillery, tank shells and sappers [combat engineers].”

He adds that “the most systematic destruction was caused by D9 bulldozers made by the US company Caterpillar.” An Israeli bulldozer operator in Gaza says that if Palestinians return to where their homes stood, “All they will find is sand.”

As Weizman puts it, “Ungrounding…aims to remove a society from its place and erase all traces to its previous existence.”

B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization that documents violations in the Occupied Territories, reached a similar conclusion in its July 2025 report, Our Genocide, stating that Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip “constitutes a coordinated attack on all aspects of Palestinians’ life.”

In B’Tselem’s words, this is “a clear and explicit attempt to destroy Palestinian society in Gaza and create catastrophic living conditions that prevent the continued existence of this society in Gaza. That is precisely the definition of genocide.”

What evidence supports the claim that the United States is complicit in the genocide in Gaza? The Genocide Convention makes direct and public incitement to commit genocide, attempted genocide, and complicity in genocide punishable offenses. Under the Convention, rulers, public officials, and private individuals may be held responsible.

Since October 2023, the United States has provided Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, including thousands of 2000-pound bombs that have been used in densely populated urban areas. It has also provided Israel with diplomatic protection at the United Nations, despite mounting evidence of widespread civilian casualties and blocked humanitarian aid.

Public rhetoric has also caused concern. Some members of Congress have called for nuking Gaza, “bouncing the rubble”, or turning the territory into a parking lot. One House member also questioned whether any civilians in Gaza should be considered innocent. Such statements can be understood as dehumanizing or as endorsing indiscriminate destruction.

Recognizing that deliberately creating conditions for the impossibility of life is genocide is not just a matter of language. It requires action to end the destruction, protect those who remain, and hold accountable all who enable it.

Terry Hansen is an opinion writer who focuses on human rights.

Reference:
Omer Bartov Lecture: “Israeli Denial of Genocide”