The collective statement by international lawyers on Gaza, signed by more than 270 lawyers and recently reported on in Just Security contains several important legal assertions with most of which we largely agree. However, as the blog post describing it referred to a letter written by us, we feel it necessary to clarify an important point concerning the way our letter was described in the blog post.
During the war, we were part of a group of Israeli international lawyers who wrote some 20 letters to senior officials in Israel, from the Prime Minister downwards, challenging the legality of measures taken by Israel in and around the Gaza Strip. The letters were written in Hebrew, and their informal English translations can be found in Verfassungsblog (the list has been periodically updated by Kai Ambos).
The letter referred to in the recent blog post was written in reaction to a media report of July 2025 that Minister of Defense Israel Katz ordered the IDF to make plans for establishing a “humanitarian city” on the ruins of Rafah, in which a large part of the Gaza population was to be concentrated after being security-vetted. In our letter of July 10 to Minister Katz and the IDF Chief of Staff (an English translation of which was later published on Just Security), we criticized the plan as manifestly unlawful under international law and warned that carrying it out would likely generate individual criminal responsibility for those involved. We also warned that, if carried out, the plan might be interpreted as an act of genocide (the deliberate infliction on the group of conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part).[1] Eventually, the Minister’s plan was not implemented by the IDF. Whatever the other evidence may be on the intent required to prove genocide, we do not consider that our letter, which only concerned the plan’s implications had it been realized, can support the conclusion that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Eyal Benvensiti
Natalie Davidson
Moshe Hirsch
Tamar Hostovsky Brandes
David Kretzmer
Doreen Lustig
Tamar Megiddo
Yael Ronen
Yuval Shany
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[1] The Hebrew version of the relevant sentence in the letter read: ריכוז האוכלוסייה במחנה עלול להתפרש כיצירה בכוונה תחילה של תנאי חיים שיש בהם כדי להביא להשמדתה הפיזית של חלק מהקבוצה, ולפיכך ליפול בגדר האיסור על רצח עם.
