‘Enough evidence’ of war crimes in Gaza, says Israeli-American Holocaust professor

As Israel continues to pursue its long and bloody war in the Gaza Strip since a surprise attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, an Israeli-American Holocaust professor said there was “enough evidence” to suggest that war crimes have been committed during the campaign.

“There is enough evidence to say that war crimes have been committed because of the disproportionality between the military goals and the number of civilians killed,” Omer Bartov, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, told Anadolu in a video interview.

Bartov said the case was similar for allegations of crimes against humanity in Gaza, where at least 14,128 Palestinians, including 5,840 children and 3,920 women, have been killed so far in Israeli ground and air attacks. Additionally, hospitals, mosques and churches have been damaged or destroyed in the besieged enclave, while over 1 million people have been displaced.

When asked if what is happening in Gaza constitutes “genocide,” Bartov said that while he was not convinced of this, the large movements of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the disproportionality in the conflict have started to paint a picture of “ethnic cleansing.”

“We are, I think, on the brink of what would be not only a humanitarian catastrophe, but could eventually become genocide,” he said.