Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel on Thursday responded to Amnesty International's allegations that Israel is carrying out a "genocide" in Gaza.
"Amnesty International thinks that you’re stupid," Haskel began. "Because they think that the 101 page report that they actually produced - you will not read."
"In this report they actually altered and changed the legal terms and definition of what genocide is. Because Israel didn’t meet the [accepted] criteria. So Amnesty International had to alter them."
Standing in Kibbutz Be'eri, one of the hardest-hit communities in the October 7 massacre, she added, "Look around us. This is what a real genocide looks like. A real attempted genocide. This is the declaration of Hamas on their platform, to completely massacre and eliminate every single Jew."
'What they did here, going from house to house, murdering civilians, raping girls, burning their houses and burning them alive - these are war crimes. That is attempted genocide. Israel’s war has only one goal, to eliminate a monstrous terrorist organization called Hamas."
Amnesty's 300-page report highlights what it claims were "direct deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructures where there was no Hamas presence or any other military objectives," the use of wide-radius explosives in densely populated areas, the blockade of humanitarian aid, and the displacement of 90% of Gaza's 2.4 million residents.
The London-based organization stated that its findings were supported by "dehumanizing and genocidal statements by Israeli government and military officials," satellite images of destruction, field investigations, and firsthand accounts from Gaza.
In a statement quoted by the AFP, Amnesty's Secretary General Agnes Callamard said, "There is absolutely no doubt that Israel has military objectives. But the existence of military objectives does not negate the possibility of a genocidal intent."