The International Association of Genocide Scholars has stated that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. This adds to a growing list of countries and humanitarian organizations that describe the situation as an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, characterized by starvation, disease, and widespread destruction. Despite loud calls for a ceasefire and the delivery of humanitarian aid, the war has not ended, and the crisis has only deepened, fueling a heated debate over who is to blame.
For its part, Israel is fighting a war to free hostages, dismantle Hamas, and prevent another October 7-style attack. This effort has resulted in significant collateral damage, even with considerable attempts to minimize it. Conversely, Hamas’s strategy appears to be designed to ensure that as many innocent civilians as possible are harmed, go hungry, and are denied medical treatment. This calculated effort is proving particularly effective, with more parties adopting its position that genocide is taking place in Gaza.
However, Hamas is engaging in a dangerous gambit. It risks succeeding beyond its own expectations, and that world public opinion will shift, leading to the understanding that if the war cannot be stopped, something else must be done to save the Palestinian population.
Paradoxically, until now, Hamas’s position has aligned with that of human rights organizations on one key point: opposition to a mass exodus from Gaza. The reason for the organizations’ opposition to evacuating the population – a move they define as forced displacement – stems from a fear of a “second Nakba,” a violation of international law, and a concern that it would serve the agenda of the Israeli far Right, which advocates for “voluntary migration.”
However, if more and more international bodies and UN agencies become convinced, as Hamas claims, that genocide is indeed taking place and there is no realistic way to end the war, the principles that prevented a mass exodus will no longer apply. Humanitarian ethics may be forced into a dramatic shift, potentially leading to a new humanitarian movement that will not be satisfied with merely criticizing Israel but seek genuine rescue operations. When a house burns down, you can’t just parachute food to the people inside and expect them to survive; you have to rescue them.
The ethical reversal
According to the UN Genocide Convention (1948), nations have a moral and legal obligation to prevent this crime. If the situation is a matter of life or death, as many claim, then every other value – including the right to remain on one’s land – becomes secondary. In a situation where there is a risk of mass destruction or harm, the supreme goal is to save lives at all costs, primarily through cross-border displacement. This has been the case in major conflicts in recent years.
In the war in Ukraine, for example, millions of refugees found shelter in European countries. In the Syrian civil war, most refugees were absorbed by neighboring countries like Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. The civil war in Yemen led many to neighboring countries on the Arabian Peninsula. The conflict in Myanmar led to waves of Rohingya refugees fleeing into Bangladesh, and later to India and Thailand. The war in Sudan has led millions of Sudanese to find refuge across the border in neighboring countries that have opened their doors, including Chad and Egypt, which in stark contrast, has firmly closed its doors even to a small number of Gaza residents.
In these cases, the international community has supported and facilitated cross-border movement as a humanitarian response, without labeling it as an extension of a historical displacement process (Nakba) or a tool for ethnic cleansing.
From a purely humanitarian perspective focused on immediate life-saving, it seems illogical to prioritize a political issue over collective survival. If countries were to open their borders as they have in all these other cases and offer a clear path to refuge for the residents of Gaza, many lives would be saved. People could escape the bombardments, starvation, and lack of medical care, and have access to shelter and security. Many would prefer this to defending their national identity at the cost of their lives.
If the situation in Gaza is viewed in this new light – no longer as a regular humanitarian crisis but as the crime of genocide, as they argue – human rights organizations will pressure nations to act in the same way, in accordance with fundamental humanitarian principles that require addressing human suffering wherever it is found, regardless of any political or ideological agenda.
They may say: “The international community must not behave like Hamas and sacrifice the Palestinian population for the sake of any political goal. Human life comes before everything. Why can’t Palestinians, like the Ukrainians, Syrians, and Sudanese, flee the war and find a safe place of refuge?” Such a call would place the obligation of rescue above all other considerations, including long-term concerns like the Palestinian cause.
<br><strong>Unintended consequences</strong>
From its perspective, Hamas must be careful what it wishes for. It is working to escalate the situation and create a humanitarian crisis to harm Israel, lead to sanctions against it, and politically isolate it. However, Hamas risks succeeding in convincing the world that genocide is being carried out in Gaza, and in doing so, it would lose the most important asset it has besides the hostages: the Gazan population itself.
The more the population’s condition deteriorates, the better Hamas’s position becomes, but this is not unconditional – it needs the population inside Gaza itself, so it can fight from among them and trigger bombing and starvation.
If the population leaves, Hamas will lose the “hostage” who generates the most solidarity for its cause. It would then be exposed to the IDF, and not even its tunnels will save it from defeat. This raises a critical question for human rights advocates: if their claim of genocide is true, what is their ultimate responsibility? Is it just to attack Israel, or to save lives through any means necessary?
The writer is a PhD candidate in the Department of Middle East Studies at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and a member of the researchers forum of the Elyashar Center at the Ben-Zvi Institute.