Genocide Is About Intent, Not Death Tolls

While Hamas declares its aim to destroy Israel, the claim that Israel is committing genocide ignores both legal standards and real-world facts about its treatment of Palestinians.

The word genocide carries immense legal and moral weight. It is not just about large numbers of deaths, but about the deliberate intention to destroy a group, in whole or in part, because of their race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. Intent is not a feeling or a suspicion. It must be demonstrated through words, actions, planning, or ideology. This is why not every tragedy or war qualifies as genocide, no matter how terrible the death toll.


Under international law, genocide is defined in the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention. According to Article II, genocide means any act such as killing, harming, or forcibly transferring people, but only when committed with intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such. This phrase, “with intent to destroy,” is what legally separates genocide from other crimes like ethnic cleansing or war crimes. It is about motive, not just the outcome.


International courts have reinforced this. In the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda confirmed that genocide had occurred not merely because of the number of deaths, but because those killings were planned and carried out with a clear aim to wipe out the Tutsi population. In the Bosnia case, the International Court of Justice ruled in 2007 that genocide must involve what is known as dolus specialis, or specific intent, to destroy a group. That means even if many people are killed, it is not genocide unless there is proof that the killers were motivated by a goal of extermination.


One of the clearest examples of this principle is the Holocaust. Adolf Hitler made no secret of what he intended to do. In Mein Kampf, published in the 1920s, he wrote about his belief that Jews were a threat to German society and should be removed. He later implemented discriminatory laws, built concentration camps, and developed what became known as the Final Solution, which aimed to wipe out the Jewish people in Europe. Hitler’s speeches, official documents, and Nazi policies all pointed to a consistent and documented objective. This is why the Holocaust is not only a historical fact but a textbook case of genocide. The intent was clear and the actions matched it.


Now consider Hamas. In its founding charter and many public statements, Hamas has made clear its desire to eliminate the State of Israel and target Jews. Their 1988 charter contained direct references to killing Jews and framed the conflict as a religious obligation. Even their revised 2017 version, while softening the language slightly, still calls for the destruction of Israel and refuses to recognise any legitimacy of Jewish sovereignty. On October 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants launched a large-scale and deliberate massacre of Israeli civilians. They attacked homes, raped women, burned families alive, and kidnapped children. These were not military strikes. They were terror attacks aimed specifically at unarmed Jewish people, carried out with fanfare and filmed proudly.


If intent is the measure of genocide, then Hamas meets that threshold. They have stated their goal, attempted to carry it out, and only failed due to lack of capability. If they had access to Israel’s military power, there is little doubt based on their own words and actions that they would use it to kill Jews on a far greater scale. In that light, Hamas has the intent to commit genocide, and has acted in ways that demonstrate it, even if the full result has not been realised.


What makes this more disturbing is that Hamas and its supporters now claim that they are the victims of genocide. This accusation is directed at Israel, the very nation they have vowed to destroy. It resembles a murderer accusing their attempted murder victim of attempted murder in order to confuse the situation and escape responsibility. It is projection. It is gaslighting on a mass scale. By accusing Israel of genocide, Hamas tries to shift the moral and legal burden away from its own actions and onto its target, creating a false narrative to serve its aims.


Genocide is not proven by death tolls alone. Civilian deaths in Gaza are tragic, but they do not automatically indicate genocide. The legal requirement is intent to destroy, and there is no evidence that Israel holds that intent toward the Palestinian people. In fact, Israel has repeatedly said its war is with Hamas, not Palestinians. It has tried to minimise civilian harm through warnings, leaflets, and evacuation orders, though the urban combat conditions and Hamas’s human shield tactics have made this extremely difficult.


If Israel truly wanted to wipe out the Palestinian people, the evidence would look very different. Instead, over 20 percent of Israel’s citizens are Arabs, many of them Palestinian. They vote, serve in parliament, attend universities, and receive healthcare. Until October 7, thousands of Palestinians from Gaza crossed into Israel daily for work. Israel invested in joint economic and infrastructure projects and sought ways to reduce tensions. These are not the actions of a country seeking extermination. They reflect an intent to live in peace with those who do not seek to destroy it.


In December 2023, South Africa filed a case at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide. The ICJ has not made any ruling confirming that genocide is taking place. It issued provisional measures, which are standard and do not indicate guilt. These are simply precautionary steps taken in complex international disputes. The reason there is no ruling is simple. No credible evidence has been presented to prove that Israel is trying to destroy the Palestinian people as a group.


This raises the question of why the genocide narrative is spreading so quickly. The answer lies in propaganda. Many of the sources pushing this claim are politically motivated, ideologically hostile to Israel, or aligned with groups that benefit from framing Israel as the aggressor. By misusing the term genocide, they dilute its meaning and obscure the reality that the party with the clearest genocidal intent is the one making the accusation.


Intent is everything. High numbers of deaths, while deeply tragic, do not equal genocide without clear evidence of a goal to destroy. If we do not protect the legal and moral meaning of the word, we risk letting it become a tool of propaganda rather than a tool of justice. Genocide is the worst crime humanity can commit. But so is falsely accusing others of it for political purposes while concealing the fact that you are the one trying to carry it out. If and when the ICJ say it is so, only then should it be so and not a moment too soon. 


A report showing missing context in UN reports is helping to establish this one sided narrative so please do take a read:  https://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/HJS-Hamass-Human-Shield-Strategy-in-Gaza-Report-WEB.pdf


Another interesting article from The economist: https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2023/11/10/how-the-term-genocide-is-misused-in-the-israel-hamas-war




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