In a statement that surprised no one, US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said during his press conference on Thursday that the United States opposes the conclusions reached by the Human Rights Watch report regarding Israel committing acts of genocide in Gaza.

"When determining whether genocide has occurred, the legal standard is extremely high, so we disagree with the conclusions of this hypothesis," Patel explained in response to reporters' questions.

In response to a question from the Jerusalem correspondent regarding the fact that this report is not isolated from other reports that preceded it, such as the Amnesty International report issued on December 5, and the report of the Israeli human rights organization, B'Tselem, issued before that, Patel said, "We do not agree with Amnesty International, nor do we agree with Human Rights Watch, and we do not accept reports from organizations that are not recognized as a source by the United States government."

It is noteworthy that the Secretary General of Amnesty International, Agnes Callamard, said during a press conference on December 5, that her organization had found “sufficient evidence to prove that Israel has committed, and continues to commit, the crime of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”

Human Rights Watch issued a report on Thursday (12/19) in which it accused the Israeli authorities of “deliberately imposing on the Palestinian population in Gaza living conditions designed to destroy part of the population, by deliberately depriving Palestinian civilians there of adequate access to water.”

The organization said that these restrictions "likely led to thousands of deaths, and are likely to continue to cause more deaths."

The report, which took a full year to complete, relied on interviews with a large number of Gaza Strip residents, employees of water companies and sewage facilities, paramedics and relief workers, in addition to analyzing satellite images and videos filmed in the Strip.

Human Rights Watch stressed that the Israeli authorities have deliberately obstructed Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from accessing the sufficient amount of water to survive, since October 2023, but it did not conclusively confirm that Israel committed "genocide."

The organization relied on statements by some Israeli officials, who expressed a "desire to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza," as evidence of a "specific intent" to commit "genocidal" acts.

Among those statements, the organization cited what the then Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Galant, said on October 9, 2023, when he announced the imposition of a “complete blockade” on Gaza and said: “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel... everything is closed.”

"I have ordered a complete blockade of the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed," Galant said after assessing the situation at the Southern Command of the Israeli occupation army that day in Beersheba.

An arrest warrant was issued on November 21 against Galant by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes, along with an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.