Amnesty International Weighed and Found Wanting

In its report, just released, on the October 7 attack, “Targeting Civilians: Murder, Hostage-Taking and Other Violations by Palestinian Armed Groups in Israel and Gaza,” Amnesty International makes some telling omissions. More on this latest Amnesty International report can be found here: “Amnesty International Refuses to Admit That Hamas Wants to Kill All Jews and Annihilate Israel,” by Darcie Grunblatt, Algemeiner, January 8, 2026:

In its nearly 200-page report on the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, “Targeting Civilians: Murder, Hostage-Taking and Other Violations by Palestinian Armed Groups in Israel and Gaza,” Amnesty International omitted years of statements by Hamas leaders and language from its charter demonstrating genocidal intent against Jews.

This omission renders Amnesty’s account of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack fundamentally flawed — because it disregards strong evidence of Hamas’ genocidal intent and distorts both the nature of the massacre and Israel’s response.

According to the former Deputy Director of Amnesty’s now defunct Israel branch, Yariv Mohar, this report on Hamas’ attack was delayed by eight months. It had already been nearly finalized by the same time the organization released its December 2024 report, titled, “‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza.”…

Well, well. In the very title of its December 2024 report, Amnesty International accuses Israel of committing “genocide.” This is nonsense. “Genocide” requires intent, and the IDF has shown quite the opposite — its “intent” has always been to spare as many civilian lives as possible. That is why, in the Gaza war, the IDF has dropped millions of leaflets, sent millions of text messages, and made millions of robocalls, all to warn civilians away from sites soon to be targeted. West Point Professor John Spencer, who specializes in urban warfare, has concluded from his study of the Gaza war that “Israel has done more and implemented more measures to prevent civilian harm than any military in the history of urban warfare.” These warnings to Gazan civilians, and Professor Spencer’s study, have had not the slightest impact on all those, including Amnesty International, that persist in accusing Israel of genocide.

While the Amnesty report includes some quotes by Hamas officials calling on Palestinians to attack Israelis, the report fails to mention the terror group’s official statements and charter — and omits that their raison d’etre is to kill Jews and wipe out Israel.

The organization also featured statements by Mohammed Deif saying that Hamas had launched the Oct. 7 attacks to end Israel’s military occupation and “its crimes,” as well as an Oct. 7 statement by Saleh Al-Arouri, then Deputy Head of the Political Bureau of Hamas, who indicated that the aims of the attacks were the liberation of the Palestinian people, breaking the siege on Gaza, stopping settlement expansion, and freeing Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons.

The quotes chosen by Amnesty to be featured in the report indicate that Hamas carried out the massacre for political and nationalist purposes. That is not true.

This cherry-picking sanitizes Hamas’ true motives, which are documented, consistent, and official, and leads readers to misunderstand why the massacre occurred.

Hamas’ 1988 charter describes its struggle against Jews as “extremely wide-ranging and grave” and calls on the Arab and Islamic world to support jihad against these “enemies.” It argues that Israel’s Jewish character contradicts Islam and must therefore be eliminated.

Any territory that was once possessed by Muslims must forever belong to Muslims. That is why the Jewish state of Israel must be destroyed; it is built on land that was once, and forever must remain, in Muslim hands.

Amnesty International is one of those NGOs that people full of anti-Israel animus staff. In fact, its only rival in this respect is that equally disreputable NGO, Human Rights Watch. But with its two reports, the first one whitewashing Hamas and the second one accusing Israel of “genocide,” I think that Amnesty International has just pulled ahead.