"Calling it genocide is a blood libel — this is normal urban warfare and the casualty numbers are Hamas propaganda."
Their strongest version
Genocide is a specific legal term requiring intent; urban war against an embedded enemy produces civilian deaths everywhere; and the Gaza Health Ministry operates under Hamas authority.
The response
Argue with the record, not with us. The ICJ found the genocide case plausible enough to order provisional measures — three times — and the merits ruling is pending. Amnesty International concluded genocide in December 2024. Human Rights Watch found acts of genocide. The International Association of Genocide Scholars, the field's own professional body, passed a resolution by an overwhelming majority. Israeli Holocaust scholars — Omer Bartov, Amos Goldberg — reached the same conclusion in print. On the numbers: the Health Ministry's counts were treated as reliable in past wars by the UN and by Israeli intelligence itself, and peer-reviewed Lancet studies found the real toll is likely higher than reported, because bodies under rubble go uncounted. It's honest to note the final ruling hasn't issued. It is not honest to call the most-documented casualty record in modern war 'propaganda.' End on what nobody disputes: tens of thousands of children are dead.