A Palestinian woman holds the hand of a child killed in an Israeli strike on a makeshift bakery housed in a tent on Al-Nassr Street in Gaza City at Al-Shifa Hospital. AFP
"Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide", a resolution adopted by the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) declared.
The non-partisan global association, made up of leading scholars whose studies focus on genocide, recognised that the Israeli government has made clear its intention of inflicting “maximum damage” on Gaza, “flattening Gaza,” and turning the strip into “hell”.
Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide describes five main actions as genocide: killing members of a certain group, causing serious harm to members of the group, intentionally enforcing living conditions that would bring about the destruction of the group, preventing births within the group, and forcibly transferring the children of the group.
In the three-page resolution, the association stated that since 7 October 2023, the Israeli government has carried out systematic and large-scale crimes against humanity, war crimes, and acts of genocide. These include indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure such as hospitals, homes, and commercial buildings, as well as crimes of torture and the deprivation of food and water.
The association also found that Israel's wholesale destruction of the Gaza Strip, including "the deliberate destruction of agricultural fields, food warehouses, and bakeries", indicates "intentional infliction of unlivable conditions resulting in starvation of Palestinians in Gaza."
It noted that the Israeli military has killed or injured more than 50,000 children—an act considered a factor of genocide, as it targets the survival of an entire group.
The resolution also cited attacks on aid workers, medical teams, and journalists.
According to the association, Israel’s actions targeted the population of Gaza as a whole.
The resolution stressed that the international community bears responsibility to prevent genocide by fulfilling its obligations under the Genocide Convention to both prevent and punish such crimes.
It further argued that so-called “security measures” against members of a group—in this case, Israel’s claims of security operations against Hamas—often serve as a pretext for mass killings and genocide.
The association called on the Israeli government to immediately halt all actions constituting genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza, including deliberate attacks on civilians, starvation, and the denial of humanitarian aid, water, fuel, and other essential resources for survival.
It also urged Israel to comply with the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), calling on states parties to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to arrest and surrender any individual subject to an ICC warrant—referring to arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Since its founding in 1994, the genocide scholars' association has passed nine resolutions recognising historic or ongoing episodes as genocides.
The IAGS determination comes as Israel continues ignoring the latest Egyptian-Qatari truce proposal and forges ahead with plans to invade Gaza City despite growing international condemnation of its genocidal war on the strip.
It came two weeks after the United Nations declared that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are facing famine due to the six-month-old Israeli blockade on aid to the strip.
Tel Aviv has ignored the International Court of Justice ruling in January 2024, which called on Israel to stop committing acts tantamount to genocide in its Gaza war.
Hamas welcomed the resolution: "This prestigious scholarly stance reinforces the documented evidence and facts presented before international courts," said Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the Gaza government media office.
The resolution "places a legal and moral obligation on the international community to take urgent action to stop the crime, protect civilians, and hold the leaders of the occupation accountable," he said.
The Palestinian resistance group also released a statement on their official Telegram channel saying that this resolution "constitutes a new legal documentation, added to the international reports and testimonies that have documented the genocide our people are enduring in full view of the world."
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