The Gaza Genocide Claim: What Happens When You Compare It to Rwanda, Armenia, and the Holocaust

The accusation is serious. It requires careful scrutiny.

I think everyone who watches the news or is on social media knows that Israel is accused of having committed genocide in Gaza after 7 October 2023. The horror of Oct 7^th, the immense loss of Gazan life and property in the ensuing war, and the ongoing trauma are undeniable and demand moral seriousness.

That accusation of genocide comes up repeatedly in comments under my notes here on Substack. It comes up repeatedly on Facebook and X, either as standalone posts or in comments under a pro-Israeli post. It is made by those who are not experts in a subject either directly or adjacently related to genocide or the Middle East and sometimes it is made by prominent academics and commentators. For example, International Relations Expert and Political Scientist Prof John Mearshimer has forcefully argued the case. You can search for his many lengthy taped lectures or click here to see the concise version provided on Facebook.

There is even a South-Africa-initiated case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) this very moment. Will the ICJ determine that what happened in Gaza was or was not a genocide?

The debate rages on mainstream and social media. People saying why it was a genocide; people saying why it was not. I am going to do something different here. I am going to compare the data we have about what happened in Gaza with the data we have about some of the officially recognized historical genocides.

Before that, I define genocide according to the UN Genocide Convention.

The UN Genocide Convention

Even extraordinarily high death tolls, population displacement, or property destruction are insufficient for an event to be labeled as a genocide. The specific intent to destroy a particular group, whether that is a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, must accompany at least one of the behavioural criteria of genocidal acts. War crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing, horrific as they are, will not meet the legal threshold for genocide without intent.

The five behavioural criteria as found on the UN site are:

Screenshot from UN site listing the five acts that are considered when adjudicating claims of genocide.

“Intent to destroy” is much more difficult to prove than calculating the harm committed. The UN understands that people may read intent into situations in which there has been much death, harm, and destruction, such as we can see in Gaza. Therefore, the UN website makes it clear that:

“Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group.” [emphasis added because this is one of the arguments behind the genocide claim against Israel]

Therefore, genocide is not defined by the scale of destruction alone, but by whether acts such as killing, harm, or the creation of destructive conditions are carried out with the specific intent to destroy a group in whole or in part. This is what distinguishes genocide from even the most devastating wars or humanitarian crises.

Genocide and Demographic Impact

One common way to assess scale is by looking at the proportion of the targeted population murdered and the long-term demographic consequences. In Table 1, we compare the case of Gaza with some historically recognized genocides (the Rwandan, Namibian (Herero and Nama), the Holocaust, the Armenian, and Yazidi Genocides):

Note that, while the first four lost a huge proportion of their populations, the Yazidi Genocide was so-labelled even though it lost just 1-2%. Gaza, similarly, shows a low proportional death toll, albeit with massive internal displacement. Of course, numbers don’t capture what 1% or 3% actually mean to the people living it.

Timing and Legal Classification

Another angle of interest is how quickly reliable death tolls emerge and how long it takes for legal or scholarly consensus on genocide to be established. This is shown in Table 2.

There was relatively rapid recognition in the cases of Rwanda and the Yazidis in contrast with the decades it took for the Holocaust, Armenian and Namibian genocides. In Gaza, the recording of deaths is still on-going, with bodies being removed from the rubble even now. As sporadic violent incidents have continued despite the ceasefire, accurate international verification remains challenging. Legal classification in the case of Gaza will depend on how the evidence is ultimately interpreted under the Convention.

The Five Behavioural Genocide Convention Criteria

The Convention defines the acts that are relevant to a determination of genocide. As discussed earlier, their legal significance depends on whether they are linked to intent. Table 3 looks at what was actually done in Gaza and in the historical cases under examination, using the Convention’s categories.

Recognized genocides typically show multiple “Yes” acts with evidence of intent. Gaza has documented killings and harm caused during the intense urban warfare, but the other acts are alleged/debated or not clearly established. The allegations are prominent in the ICJ case and public debate, remaining subject to intense factual and legal dispute.

A Matter of Intent

The question of intent is difficult to resolve because it is inferred from patterns rather than stated directly. Courts look at what was done, what was said, and how those elements fit together.

Statements by Israeli officials, including calls for extensive destruction of infrastructure or proposals regarding population transfer, are also subject to differing interpretations. Some see them as evidence of genocidal intent; others as rhetoric accompanying a campaign to dismantle Hamas.

In Gaza, the same body of evidence can be read in more than one way. Food insecurity, destruction of infrastructure, and high civilian casualties may be interpreted as part of a deliberate effort to destroy a population. They may also be interpreted as the consequences of sustained urban warfare against an armed group embedded within that population.

The question is further complicated by contested evidence regarding humanitarian aid. Israel allowed substantial quantities of aid into Gaza, while reports also document diversion, interception, and breakdowns in distribution within the territory. These competing accounts make it difficult to attribute outcomes to a single cause, and attribution is central to any finding of intent.

This is why legal adjudication is required.

The International Court of Justice is currently considering the case. Israel submitted its counter-memorial in March 2026. A final ruling is likely years away. Separately, the ICC is investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity by all parties.

Conclusion

The accusation is serious and slogans on the media and in street demonstrations cannot replace serious adjudication.

That is what the ICJ is for, and it is what this comparison is for.

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Postscript: A Note on Legal Precedent

A reader raised an important legal point in the comments. My article used Rwanda, Armenia, the Holocaust, Namibia, and the Yazidi genocide as comparative benchmarks. Those cases are historically instructive. Gregory Barton pointed out that the more directly relevant legal benchmark is the ICJ’s own jurisprudence, particularly Bosnia v. Serbia (2007) and Croatia v. Serbia (2015).

It’s worth noting that the ICJ and other international tribunals are separate bodies. Rwanda, for example, was adjudicated by the ICTR, not the ICJ. When Barton says the ICJ has found genocide only once, he means specifically the ICJ operating under the Genocide Convention.

The ICJ set a demanding standard for inferring genocidal intent.

This sharpens the argument in this article. When I wrote that the Gaza evidence can be read in more than one way, I was making an analytical observation. Barton’s citation suggests it is also legally significant. Under ICJ precedent, ambiguity of intent is not a close call. If a pattern of conduct can support more than one explanation, the charge faces a serious legal obstacle.

Readers interested in the legal argument can consult Barton’s full comment below.

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