Gaza Herald- The world’s leading association of genocide scholars has officially declared that Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza meets the legal definition of genocide under international law. The resolution was passed with overwhelming support, underscoring a growing consensus among academics that Israel’s policies amount to a systematic campaign to destroy the Palestinian people.
Eighty-six percent of members who voted within the 500-strong International Association of Genocide Scholars backed the resolution, which stated: “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).”
Israel did not issue an immediate response. It has repeatedly dismissed genocide accusations, insisting its actions are self-defense, even as it stands trial at the International Court of Justice in The Hague on charges of genocide.
The assault began in October 2023 after Hamas fighters attacked Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages. In the nearly year-long campaign since, Israel has unleashed mass destruction on Gaza, killing more than 63,000 Palestinians, wounding over 160,000, and forcing nearly the entire population from their homes. The bombardment has leveled most of Gaza’s infrastructure and created conditions of starvation. A global hunger monitor relied upon by the United Nations has confirmed parts of Gaza are suffering a man-made famine—one Israel continues to deny.
In Gaza, the resolution was welcomed as a long-overdue acknowledgment of Palestinian suffering. Ismail Al-Thawabta, head of the Gaza government media office, said: “This prestigious scholarly stance reinforces the documented evidence presented before international courts. It places a legal and moral obligation on 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 International Association of Genocide Scholars has issued nine resolutions recognizing historic or ongoing genocides. The 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention defines genocide as acts intended to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group through killing, serious harm, forced displacement, starvation, preventing births, or the transfer of children.
The association’s three-page resolution called on Israel to halt immediately “all acts that constitute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza, including deliberate attacks on civilians, starvation, deprivation of humanitarian aid, water, fuel and essentials, sexual and reproductive violence, and forced displacement.”
The resolution also recognized that Hamas’s October 7 attack constituted international crimes, but stressed that this does not absolve Israel of its obligations under international law, nor diminish the scale of its responsibility for atrocities committed against civilians in Gaza.
Melanie O’Brien, the association’s president and a professor of international law at the University of Western Australia, emphasized: “This is a definitive statement from experts in genocide studies that what is happening in Gaza constitutes genocide.”
Sergey Vasiliev, a professor of international law at the Open University in the Netherlands, added that the resolution signals how “this legal assessment has become mainstream within academia, particularly in the field of genocide studies.”
Several human rights groups and even Israeli NGOs have already accused Israel of genocide. Recently, hundreds of U.N. staff at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights urged Commissioner Volker Turk to describe Israel’s war as genocide, warning that history would judge silence as complicity.
The resolution by the world’s foremost genocide experts represents a landmark moment in the struggle for Palestinian justice. It strengthens the mounting international case against Israel and places renewed pressure on world governments to act decisively. As Gaza continues to endure mass killings, famine, and forced displacement, the association’s verdict underscores a stark truth: what is unfolding is not merely a war, but a deliberate attempt to erase an entire people. History will remember those who stood against it—and those who enabled it.
