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Photos: Published by Haaretz
Israeli author David Grossman, 2022. Credit: Emil Salman

Palestinians receive food at an aid distribution hub in Gaza City, Friday. Credit: AFP/Omar Al-Qattaa

Minister of Communications Shlomo Karhi and settler leader Daniella Weiss at a march last week calling for rebuilding Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip. 'Don't they remember what happened when we were there?' askes Grossman. Credit: Ilan Asayag

A journalist displays the executive summary of B'Tselem and PHRI's "Our Genocide" report at a press conference in Jerusalem, Monday. Credit: Maya Alleruzzo/AP

A Palestinian child suffering from malnutrition in Al-Shati Camp in Gaza, last week. Credit: Jehad Alshrafi/AP

People attend a protest organized by Standing Together in Tel Aviv last week. Credit: Tomer Appelbaum
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Leading Israeli Author David Grossman Calls Gaza War a 'Genocide'

World-renowned Israeli writer David Grossman said coming to the realization that Israel is committing genocide was extremely painful, but he now has a moral obligation to speak up: 'I feel an inner urgency to do the right thing, and now is the time to do it'

by Davide Lerner for Haaretz
Aug 1, 2025

ROME - David Grossman, one of Israel's most prominent authors, told Italian daily La Repubblica he has decided to start using the word "genocide" to describe the situation in Gaza.

"For years, I refused to use the word 'genocide.' But now I can't hold back from using it, after what I've read in the newspapers, after the images I've seen and after talking to people who have been there", he said in the interview published in the paper's print edition on Friday.

Grossman said coming to the realization that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza was an extremely painful process on a personal level, but that he now found such conclusion inescapable.

"I want to speak as a person who has done everything he could to avoid having to call Israel a genocidal state. And now, with immense pain and a broken heart, I have to say that it is happening before my eyes. Genocide," he said.

Grossman said coming to the realization that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza was an extremely painful process on a personal level, but that he now found such conclusion inescapable.

"I want to speak as a person who has done everything he could to avoid having to call Israel a genocidal state. And now, with immense pain and a broken heart, I have to say that it is happening before my eyes. Genocide," he said.

Grossman's words come amid growing condemnation of Israel for its actions in Gaza on the international stage, and as several countries, including France and Britain, have pledged to recognize a Palestinian state in the near future.

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It's Not Just War. It's Genocide – and It's Being Done in Our Name

Two leading Israeli rights groups have named what others still deny: the campaign in Gaza is not just brutal or disproportionate – it is the deliberate destruction of a people. The evidence is overwhelming, the intent undeniable, and the silence complicit

by Gideon Levy for Haaretz
Jul 30, 2025

The time has come. It is no longer possible to beat around the bush and avoid giving an answer. We can no longer hide, evade, mumble, mollify and obscure. Nor can we hang on to legal sophistry about the "question of intent" or to wait for the ruling of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, which may only be handed down once it's too late.

It's already too late. That is why the time has come to call the horror by its name – and its full name is genocide, the extermination of a people. There is no other way to describe it. In front of our horrified eyes, Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. It did not begin now; it began in 1948. Now, however, sufficient evidence has accumulated to call the monstrous child in the Gaza Strip by its full name.

This is a moment of despair, but it is also liberating. We no longer need to avoid the truth. On Monday, in the basement of a hotel in East Jerusalem, two important Israeli human rights groups announced that the die was cast. B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights stated that they had reached the conclusion that Israel was committing genocide. They did so in front of dozens of journalists from all over the world and a shameful, sparse representation from the Israeli media.

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'Contrary to Morality of the Torah': Jewish Leaders Condemn Settler Violence in West Bank

'Silence in today's circumstances is complicity,' say over 600 rabbis and educators following the killing of a Palestinian and a Palestinian-American last Friday, warning that religious leaders' silence has emboldened settlers to commit violence under the guise of divine command

by Etan Nechin for Haaretz
New York
Jul 17, 2025

More than 600 rabbis, educators, and Jewish communal leaders from the United States and Israel have signed a public letter condemning settler violence following the killing of a Palestinian and a Palestinian-American last Friday near the West Bank town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah.

The deadly assault, allegedly carried out by settlers, claimed the lives of two young Palestinians – Saif Mussallet, 21, an American citizen, and Mohammad Razek Hussein al-Shalabi, 23 – in an area that had recently been seized by settlers who had previously carried out attacks there.

The letter, organized by the U.S. branch of Smol Emuni (Religious Left) – an organization of observant Jews focused on ending the occupation and promoting human rights and equality – comes amid a sharp rise in settler violence across the West Bank since the outbreak of war in Gaza.

The signatories describe what they call a pattern of violent attacks on Palestinian civilians, including arson and the forced displacement of families from their homes.

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Among the signatories are prominent Jewish leaders from a wide spectrum of religious and educational institutions, including Rabbi Donniel Hartman and Yehuda Kurtzer of the Shalom Hartman Institute, Rabbi Yosef Blau of Yeshiva University, Rabbi Daniel Sperber of Bar-Ilan University, and Rabbi Sharon Brous of the Los Angeles-based community IKAR. Others include Rabbanit Leah Shakdiel, Rabbi Herzl Hefter, and Rabbi Naama Kelman, the first woman ordained as a Reform rabbi in Israel, alongside dozens of rabbis affiliated with Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and progressive institutions in both Israel and the U.S.

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