alt Hacker NewsWholesale population displacement is explicitly not (by itself) genocide under the convention. Genocide is an intent crime, and the intent has to be the eradication of the targeted ethnic, national, racial, or religious group. Kidnapping all the children in an occupied territory and dispersing them so they can't be returned to their families is genocidal. Mass displacement isn't.
The fixation on the term "genocide" has been a major own-goal for advocates of Palestinians. It was deliberately defined to be a difficult bar to clear. "Warm crimes" and "ethnic cleansing" are easy claims to make in the region, and ordinary people don't care about the distinction between "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide"; that term would have served just as well, without the escape hatch "genocide" provides.
So... "statements from leaders that suggest genocidal intent" ... meets the genocide bar, yes? I'll just quote wikipedia:
The Gaza genocide is the ongoing,[19][20] intentional, and systematic destruction of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip carried out by Israel during the Gaza war. It encompasses mass killings, deliberate starvation, infliction of serious bodily and mental harm, and prevention of births. Other acts include blockading, destroying civilian infrastructure, destroying healthcare facilities, killing healthcare workers and aid-seekers, causing mass forced displacement, committing sexual violence, and destroying educational, religious, and cultural sites.[21] The genocide has been recognised by a United Nations special committee[22] and commission of inquiry,[21] the International Association of Genocide Scholars,[23][24] multiple human rights groups,[c] state governments, numerous genocide studies and international law scholars,[30][31] and other experts.[32]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide