The world’s leading genocide scholars have declared that Israel’s war on Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide.
The world’s leading genocide scholars have declared that Israel’s war on Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide.
The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) passed a resolution on Monday, adding to the chorus of countries, rights groups and other bodies that believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Israel has killed more than 63,500 people and wounded more than 160,000 in its war on Gaza. During the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, 1,139 people were killed, and about 200 were taken captive.
Here’s all you need to know about the declaration and the body making it.
What was announced, and who announced it?
The IAGS, a 500-member body of academics founded in 1994, is the world’s leading association of genocide scholars.
Eighty-six percent of IAGS members voted in favour of a resolution stating that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza fulfil the definition of genocide set out in the 1948 United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
“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,” Melanie O’Brien, IAGS president and professor of international law at the University of Western Australia, told Reuters on Monday.
How is genocide defined under international law?
The 1948 Genocide Convention defines genocide as: “Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group:
Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
What did IAGS base their decision on?
In short, IAGS based its decision on the United Nations Genocide Convention.
It also declared that “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity as defined in international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
Among the Israeli crimes the resolution pointed to were “indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against the civilians and civilian infrastructure (hospitals, homes, commercial buildings, etc.) of Gaza”.
IAGS recognised several acts by Israel against Palestinians, including:
- torture,
- arbitrary detention,
- sexual and reproductive violence,
- deliberate attacks on medical professionals, humanitarian aid workers, and journalists,
- deliberately depriving people of food, water and medicine,
- displacing 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,
- demolishing more than 90 percent of the housing infrastructure,
- killing entire multi-generational families, and
- maiming or injuring more than 50,000 children.
The IAGS also referred to comments made by Israeli officials and a plan first floated by US President Donald Trump and backed by the Israeli government to expel Palestinians from Gaza as further evidence that the criteria for genocide have been met.
You can read the full resolution here (PDF).
How is this resolution significant?
The decision may not singularly push anybody into action, but it adds to the chorus of internal organisations, human rights groups, and experts declaring Israel’s war on Gaza a genocide.
As the world’s leading body of genocide scholars, the IAGS resolution has already received much attention from the mainstream media.
Still, the UN and many Western nations say they will only consider it a genocide if a court rules it to be so.
The UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), is considering South Africa’s case that argues Israel is committing genocide, but a decision is not expected before 2027.
How has Israel responded to the announcement?
The Israeli government called the decision “disgraceful”.
“The IAGS has set a historic precedent – for the first time, ‘Genocide Scholars’ accuse the very victim of genocide – despite Hamas’s attempted genocide against the Jewish people,” Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
What position has the UN taken on this issue?
The UN has repeatedly denounced Israel’s actions in Gaza, but has not officially said it is a genocide.
Last week, hundreds of UN staffers wrote to High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, asking him to explicitly label it a genocide.
Turk has yet to do so.
“Labelling of an event as a genocide is up to a competent legal authority,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told Reuters.
Turk aside, the United Nations Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories found “Israel’s war methods consistent with genocide” as far back as November 2024.
A month earlier, in October 2024, UN experts called on the global community “to examine their relationships and avoid being complicit in this crime being committed by Israel on the Palestinian people in Gaza,” adding, “It is important to call a genocide a genocide.”
What is the situation in Gaza?
Dire.
Israel has killed more than 63,000 people since October 2023, and some two million Palestinians have been displaced.
Much of the Gaza Strip is in ruins after repeated bombings by the Israeli military, and Israel has now called up thousands of reservists for a new offensive on Gaza City.
On August 29, the UN said the descent into a “massive famine” had begun in Gaza.
Israel is also targeting journalists, in what media freedom groups say is an effort to suppress the reality on the ground in Gaza from reaching the outside world.
