TEHRAN - Nothing is more synonymous with genocide than slaughtering defenseless civilians, in particular women and children.

Israel has committed this heinous act over the past decades, especially since launching war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.

More than a year into the conflict, the Israeli army has butchered nearly 44,000 Palestinians. According to the United Nations Human Rights Office, almost 70 percent of the victims are women and children.

Israel has internally displaced almost all of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million population. 

Israel also launched a new offensive in northern Gaza last month. It has obstructed the delivery of essentials such as food to Jabaliya, Beit Lahiya, and Beit Hanoun since the offensive and tightened siege began on October 5.

Experts have warned the United Nations Security Council that famine is "occurring or imminent" in parts of northern Gaza.

The regime remains accused of carrying out an ethnic cleansing campaign in northern Gaza to expel Palestinians and pave the ground for settlers to move in.  

A UN special committee says Israel is running an “apartheid system” in the West Bank likening the regime’s actions in Gaza to genocide. Israel claims that its strikes in Gaza target Hamas fighters and denies committing genocide in the enclave. 

Nonetheless, a UN special committee has likened Israel’s actions in Gaza to genocide. 

It said in a report that Israel’s war conduct in Gaza “is consistent with the characteristics of genocide.”

“Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the

International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation, and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population,” the committee, which is composed of three UN member states, namely Malaysia, Senegal, and Sri Lanka, added.

The report further said civilians have been indiscriminately and disproportionally killed en masse in Gaza.

The committee also touched upon Israel’s crimes in the West Bank. It said the regime is running an “apartheid system” in the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem (al-Quds).

Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 700 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the war on Gaza. 

Israel already stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). 

In January, the ICJ responded to the genocide case brought by South Africa. It ordered Israel to refrain from acts violating the Genocide Convention, prevent and punish incitement to genocide and ensure that humanitarian aid would reach Gaza citizens.

But Israel has turned a blind eye to the ruling and massacred more Palestinians. 

Israel has made a mockery of international law. The regime tries to justify its brutal strikes in Gaza by arguing that it has the right to defend itself against attacks carried out by resistance fighters. 

Israel smears resistance fighters while its Western allies, especially the United States, echo its propaganda.

The increasing global outrage over Israel's atrocities in Gaza, which have extended into Lebanon since mid-September, indicates that the propaganda efforts of Israel and its Western allies have fallen flat.