> "In international law, occupation is when a foreign power gains effective control over a territory during an armed conflict, even without armed resistance. The territory under control is called occupied territory, and the foreign power is called the occupant."

Where did you get that definition? The source your parent gave you has a completely different definition (which cites the original Hague Convention of 1907 [Part IV article 42]):

> Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised

Wikipedia has a similar definition:

> temporary hostile control exerted by a ruling power's military apparatus over a sovereign territory that is outside of the legal boundaries of that ruling power's own sovereign territory

Nowhere in current international law does occupation require an active armed conflict. And your definition even contradicts it self when it states “even without armed resistance”. How can it be during an armed conflict when there is not armed resistance?

I suspect this definition has been Frankensteined from the original Hague Conference of 1907 which defines occupation (as cited above) and later additions from the Fourth Geneva convention of 1949 (Article 2):

> The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.

Then your definition sort of sandwiched an additional requirement of “during and armed conflict” seemingly from thin air. I can’t find this requirement in any treaties of intentional law.

I wonder why they didn’t go forward with the extermination charges then. It shouldn’t be to hard to find evidence of hundreds of illegal deaths. I mean the flour massacre alone has 118+ confirmed deaths back in February.

Did the prosecutor simply fail to put forward good enough evidence to convince the judges?

Not that it matters the most, the charges they did bring are serious enough.

Yeah, I was painting with broad strokes. Thanks for clarifying.

> Israel has had the means of destroying all of Gaza and bulldozing the debris into the sea for decades.

This is a really weak argument. Just because you have the means of a greater damage, that doesn’t absolve you of the damage you did cause. If I punch you in the face, I won’t be found not-guilty just because there was a fire extinguisher near by and in theory I could have caused a much greater harm.

This argument is doubly bad because Israel has destroyed all of Gaza. Almost everybody who lives there has been displaced. Most of everyone’s house is damaged or destroyed, almost everybody know somebody that has died, or is seriously wounded. The entire health care system has collapsed, the entire public order has collapsed, and people are constantly hungry. This is a textbook example of the destruction of a place.

> Even in this campaign they've been objectively trying to reduce civilian casualties despite it's detrimental effect on their military objective.

They have not. There are evidence of a pattern of conduct of civilians being targeted and killed on a regular basis by the IDF. This includes x-rays of photos of children’s skulls that have been shot in the head by an Israeli sniper, the share number of civilians killed and the statistical unlikelyhood that all these civilians were killed merely by accident, the previously mentioned destruction of the healthcare system and public order, etc. All of this combined is more than enough evidence that Israel is intending to bring about the destruction of Gaza in order to make civilian life impossible.

Using the word Genocide in the context is very appropriate and is being done by most experts on the matter, human rights organizations, international organizations, governments, etc.

The charges in question are that of targeting hospitals and hindering aid from reaching Gaza. Netanyahu and Gallant are being charged with the policy of targeting hospitals and hindering aid. The videos we have of people dying are only related to the crime if they show how hospitals or aid convoys were targeted. Of which we have plenty. For example the flour massacre is only one of many instances of aid being targeted which resulted in hundreds of civilians dying. And the fact the the four massacre was not an isolated incident, but followed a pattern of other links in the aid chain being targeted or otherwise prevented from being delivered to civilians is a very good argument for that this is actually a policy, of which Netanyahu and Gallant are guilty.

The charges are not of war crimes, but of crimes against humanity. A war crime is an event which individual soldiers or commanders, or generals are guilty of. Crimes agains humanity is criminal policy which politicians are charged for.