The world's leading experts on genocide have adopted a resolution stating that the legal criteria for establishing that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip have been met, the association's president announced on Monday.
As many as 86 percent of members who voted within the International Association of Genocide Researchers, which has about 500 members, supported the resolution, NBC News reports, citing Reuters.
"Israel's policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide," the resolution states.
There has been no immediate comment from the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Israel has previously strongly rejected accusations that its actions in Gaza constitute genocide, claiming it was legitimate self-defense. The case is ongoing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where Israel faces charges of genocide.
Israel launched an offensive on Gaza in October 2023, after fighters from Hamas - the Palestinian militant group that controls the territory - carried out an attack on Israeli communities on the Gaza border, killing 1.200 people and taking more than 250 hostage.
Since then, Israeli military action has reportedly killed an estimated 63.000 people, destroyed or severely damaged most buildings in Gaza, and forced almost all residents to flee their homes at least once. Global monitors relied on by the United Nations say parts of Gaza are now suffering from an artificial famine, a claim Israel also denies.
Hamas in Gaza welcomed the adoption of this resolution.
"This reputable scientific position further confirms the documented evidence and facts presented before international courts," said Ismail Al-Shawabta, director of the Hamas-run government media relations office in Gaza.
He added that the resolution "legally and morally obligates the international community to act urgently to stop the crime, protect civilians and hold the leaders of the occupation accountable."
Since its founding in 1994, the Association of Genocide Researchers has adopted nine resolutions recognizing historical or current cases of genocide.
The 1948 UN Genocide Convention, adopted after the mass murders of Jews in 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."
The Convention obliges all states to take measures to prevent and stop genocide.
Acts that constitute genocide include killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, creating conditions conducive to the destruction of the group, preventing births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The three-part 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 the deliberate attacks and killings of civilians, including children; the infliction of starvation; the denial of humanitarian assistance, water, fuel and other means essential for the survival of the population; sexual and reproductive violence; and the forcible displacement of the population."
The resolution also states that Hamas' attack on Israel, which led to the outbreak of war, constituted an international crime.
"This is the definitive assessment of experts in the field of genocide studies that genocide is taking place on the ground in Gaza," said the Association's president, Melanie O'Brien, a professor of international law at the University of Western Australia who specializes in the issue of genocide.
Sergei Vasiliev, a professor of international law at the Open University in the Netherlands, who is not a member of the association, told Reuters that the resolution shows how "this legal assessment has become dominant in academic circles, especially in the field of genocide studies."
Several international human rights organizations, as well as some Israeli NGOs, have already accused Israel of genocide. Last week, hundreds of staff at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk sent a letter asking him to clearly describe the war in Gaza as an ongoing genocide, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
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