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Journalism of Courage
A leading body of academics on genocide has said that Israel’s ongoing actions in Gaza are genocide. The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) on Monday said that Israel’s “policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide.”
The organisation, which has around 500 members worldwide, including a number of Holocaust experts, said in a resolution that “Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” within its findings, the resolution argues that Israel’s actions in response to the terrorist attack committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023, have not only been directed against Hamas “but have also targeted the entire Gazan population.”
“The government of Israel has engaged in systematic and widespread crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, including indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure,” the resolution passed with an 86 per cent vote on August 31, said.
The resolution accused Israel of crimes including “indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against the civilians and civilian infrastructure” in Gaza and called on Israel to “ immediately cease all acts that constitute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza.”
“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, the organisation’s president and a professor of international law at the University of Western Australia, told Reuters.
“People who are experts in the study of genocide can see this situation for what it is,” O’Brien told The Associated Press.
Responding to the resolution, Israel vehemently denied that it was committing genocide in Gaza and claimed that the Jewish state was the real victim.
“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 Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “Disgraceful.”
This is not the first time Israel has been accused of genocide in the ongoing war in Gaza. In July, two prominent Israeli rights groups — B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel — said that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.
More than 62,000 people have been killed and more than 2 million have been displaced in Gaza since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its ongoing, unprecedented assault on the Palestinian territories in retaliation for the Hamas terror attack that killed over 1,200 Israelis.
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