The world’s biggest academic association of genocide scholars has passed a resolution saying the legal criteria have been met to establish Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, its president said on Monday, Reuters reports.
Eighty-six percent of those who voted among the 500-member International Association of Genocide Scholars backed the resolution declaring Israel’s “policies and actions in Gaza” had met the legal definition set out in Article II of the 1948 UN convention on genocide.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the statement disgraceful and “entirely based on Hamas’ campaign of lies.” Israel has in the past strongly denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide and says they are justified as self defense. It is fighting a case at the International Court of Justice in the Hague that accuses it of genocide.
Israel launched its assault on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, after fighters from Hamas, the Palestinian militant group in control of the territory, attacked Israeli communities, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages.
The three-page resolution calls on Israel to “immediately cease all acts that constitute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza, including deliberate attacks against and killing of civilians including children; starvation; deprivation of humanitarian aid, water, fuel, and other items essential to the survival of the population; sexual and reproductive violence; and forced displacement of the population.”
It also states that the Hamas attack on Israel which precipitated the war constituted international crimes.
“This is a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is going on on the ground in Gaza is genocide,” the association’s president, Melanie O’Brien, a professor of international law at the University of Western Australia who specializes in genocide, told Reuters.
