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 yesterday.
Eighty-six per cent 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 launched its assault on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, after fighters from Hamas attacked Israeli communities, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 250 hostages.
Since then, Israel’s military action has killed 63,000 people, damaged or destroyed most buildings in the territory and forced nearly all its residents to flee their homes at least once. A global hunger monitor relied on by the United Nations says parts of the territory are now suffering a man-made famine, which Israel also denies.
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 in Gaza is genocide,” the association’s president, Melanie O’Brien, a professor of international law at the University of Western Australia who specialises in genocide, told Reuters.
“There is no justification for the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide, not even self defence,” she added.
The 1948 UN Genocide Convention, adopted in the wake of the mass murder of Jews by Nazi Germany, defines genocide as crimes committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”. It requires all countries to act to prevent and stop genocide.
Since the genocide scholars’ association was founded in 1994, it has passed nine resolutions recognising historic or ongoing episodes as genocides.
The IAGS publishes a journal and holds regular international conferences of scholars studying genocide, and is considered the largest academic group in the field. Another group, the International Network of Genocide Scholars, also holds conferences and publishes a journal but does not issue similar resolutions.
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