Leading genocide scholars declare Israel’s actions in Gaza meet legal definition of genocide

A leading global association of genocide scholars has passed a resolution stating that the legal criteria for genocide by Israel in Gaza have been met.

In the 500-member International Association of Genocide Scholars, 86% of those who voted supported the resolution, which states, “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza are consistent with the legal definition of genocide found in Article II of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948).”

Hamas welcomed the decision. Ismail al-Thawabta, director of the Gaza government media office, said, “This prestigious scholarly stance strengthens the documented evidence and facts presented to international courts.”

The director said the resolution “imposes a legal and moral obligation on the international community to take urgent measures to stop the crime, protect civilians, and hold the leaders of the occupation accountable.”

The three-page resolution adopted by the scholars calls on Israel to “immediately cease all actions constituting genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza.”

These actions include deliberate attacks on and killings of civilians, including children; starvation; deprivation of humanitarian aid, water, fuel, and other materials necessary for the population’s survival; sexual and reproductive violence; and the forced displacement of the population.

The resolution also asserts that the Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the war “constitutes international crimes.”

The association’s president, Melanie O’Brien, a professor of international law at the University of Western Australia specializing in genocide, told Reuters, “This is a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is happening in Gaza is genocide.”

Sergey Vasiliev, a professor of international law at the Open University of the Netherlands who is not a member of the association, told Reuters that the resolution shows “this legal assessment is becoming mainstream in academia, especially in the field of genocide studies.”

Several international rights groups and some Israeli NGOs have also accused Israel of committing genocide. According to a letter reviewed by Reuters, hundreds of UN staff working at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights wrote to Volker Türk last week, asking him to explicitly define the Gaza war as an ongoing genocide.

Since its founding in 1994, the association of genocide scholars has passed nine resolutions recognizing historical or ongoing events as genocide.

The 1948 UN Genocide Convention, adopted after Nazi Germany’s mass murder of Jews, defines genocide as crimes committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical,racial or religious group.”

The treaty requires all countries to take action to prevent and stop genocide.

Crimes constituting genocide include killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, creating conditions calculated to bring about their destruction, preventing births, or forcibly transferring children to other groups.