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THE HAGUE: The world’s leading genocide scholars’ association has passed a resolution saying that the legal criteria have been met to establish Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, its president said on Monday.
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 meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948).”
There was no immediate response from the Israeli foreign ministry. 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.
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.
In Gaza, 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 Hamas-run 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.
Since its founding in 1994, the genocide scholars’ association has passed nine resolutions recognizing historic or ongoing episodes as genocides.
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.
Criminal acts comprising genocide include killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, creating conditions calculated to destroy them, preventing births, or forcibly transferring children to other groups.
The three-page resolution adopted by the scholars 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.”
The resolution 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.
Sergey Vasiliev, a professor of international law at the Open University in the Netherlands who is not a member of the association, told Reuters the resolution showed that “this legal assessment has become mainstream within academia, particularly in the field of genocide studies.”
Several international rights groups and some Israeli NGOs have already accused Israel of committing genocide. Last week hundreds of UN staff at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk wrote to ask him to explicitly describe the Gaza war as an unfolding genocide, according to a letter reviewed by Reuters.

FRANKFURT: Israel must “immediately” improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza, the German government’s representative for human rights and humanitarian aid said Monday, ahead of a trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Until recently Israel has enjoyed broad support across the political spectrum in Germany, but Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s tone toward Israel has sharpened as the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza has deteriorated.
Last month, the United Nations officially declared a famine in Gaza, after a UN-backed report warned that 500,000 people were facing “catastrophic” conditions in the war-ravaged territory.
“The Israeli government must improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza immediately, comprehensively, sustainably, and in accordance with humanitarian principles and international law,” said envoy Lars Castellucci, a lawmaker of the Social Democrats, which govern with Merz’s conservatives.
He condemned the “immeasurable” suffering of civilians, especially children, who are trapped in the conflict and “bear neither guilt nor responsibility.”
German humanitarian aid to Gaza “has been increased several times,” but it is “pointless” as long as it does not reach those in need, he said.
While he reaffirmed Germany’s “special responsibility” for Israel’s security and called for the “immediate release” of hostages held by Hamas, he also stressed the urgency of a ceasefire and advocated a “two state solution.”
The war in Gaza erupted following Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
Of the 251 hostages seized during the attack, 47 are still being held in Gaza, around 20 of whom are believed to be alive.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 63,459 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.