Genocide Scholars Accusing Israel of Genocide

IAGS Resolution on the Situation in Gaza

Recognising that, since the horrific Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023, which itself constitutes
international crimes, the government of Israel has engaged in systematic and widespread crimes
against humanity, war crimes and genocide, including indiscriminate and deliberate attacks
against the civilians and civilian infrastructure (hospitals, homes, commercial buildings, etc.) of
Gaza, which, according to official UN estimates, at the date of this resolution, has killed more
than 59,000 adults and children in Gaza;

Recognising that these crimes are estimated to have left many thousands of people buried under
the rubble or otherwise inaccessible, and most probably dead;
Recognising that this bombing and other violence is estimated to have injured more than 143,000
people, with many maimed;

Recognising that the actions of the Israeli government against Palestinians have included torture,
arbitrary detention, and sexual and reproductive violence; deliberate attacks on medical
professionals, humanitarian aid workers and journalists; and the deliberate deprivation of food,
water, medicine, and electricity essential to the survival of the population;

Recognising that Israel has forcibly displaced nearly all of the 2.3 million Palestinians in the
Gaza Strip multiple times, and demolished more than 90 percent of the housing infrastructure in
the territory;

Recognising that the consequences of these crimes have included destroying entire families and
multiple generations of Palestinians;

Recognising that Israel has destroyed schools, universities, libraries, museums, and archives, all
of them essential to the continued existence of Palestinian collective well-being and identity;
Recognising that Israel has killed or injured more than 50,000 children and that this destruction
of a substantial part of a group constitutes genocide, as emphasized in a joint declaration of
intervention in the International Court of Justice case of The Gambia v Myanmar by six
countries—Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom—
which states “that children form a substantial part of the groups protected by the Genocide
Convention, and that the targeting of children provides an indication of the intention to destroy a
group as such, at least in part. Children are essential to the survival of any group as such, since
the physical destruction of the group is assured where it is unable to regenerate itself.”;

Recognising that Israeli governmental leaders, war cabinet ministers, and senior army officers
have made explicit statements of “intent to destroy”, characterizing Palestinians in Gaza as a
whole as enemies and “human animals” and stating the intention of inflicting “maximum
damage” on Gaza, “flattening Gaza,” and turning Gaza into “hell”;

Recognising that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has endorsed the current US
President’s plan to forcibly expel all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, with no right of return, in
what Navi Pillay, head of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory,
has said amounts to ethnic cleansing;

Recognising that the deliberate destruction of agricultural fields, food warehouses, and bakeries
and other violence that prevents food production, in conjunction with denial and restriction of
humanitarian aid, indicate the intentional infliction of unlivable conditions resulting in starvation
of Palestinians in Gaza;

Acknowledging that, on 21 November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest
warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of
Israel, in the court’s ongoing investigation opened on 3 March 2021, of crimes committed on
Palestinian territory since 13 June 2014, charging them with crimes identified in the Rome
Statute, in the Gaza Strip from at least 8 October 2023, including the starvation of civilians,
intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population, murder, and persecution;

Whereas Israel’s actions in response to the October 7 attack and subsequent holding of hostages
have not only been directed against the Hamas group responsible for these, but have also targeted
the entire Gazan population;

Acknowledging that the International Court of Justice found in three provisional measures order
in the case of South Africa v. Israel — January, March, and May 2024 — that it is plausible that
Israel is committing genocide in its attack in Gaza and ordered Israel to take all measures within
its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement of genocide and to ensure the
provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza;

Acknowledging that leading global international law organizations and UN bodies, including
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Forensic Architecture, DAWN, B’Tselem and
Physicians for Human Rights, and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories, have conducted extensive investigations and issued reports
concluding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza;

Acknowledging that a number of Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish, and other scholarly experts working
in Holocaust and Genocide Studies and in International Law have concluded that Israeli
governmental and military actions constitute genocide;

Acknowledging that international civil society has a responsibility to prevent genocide by
encouraging and assisting states to fulfil their obligations under the Genocide Convention to
prevent, suppress, and punish genocide;

Acknowledging that putative security measures against members of a group are often pretext for
mass killing and genocide as it has become in this case;

Therefore, the International Association of Genocide Scholars:

Declares that 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);

Declares 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;

Calls upon the government of 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;

Calls upon the government of Israel to comply with the Provisional Measures orders of the
International Court of Justice;

Calls upon the state parties of the International Criminal Court to comply with their obligations,
cooperate with the Court, and surrender any individual subject to an arrest warrant;
Calls upon all states to actively pursue policies to ensure respect for their obligations under
international law, including under the Genocide Convention, the Arms Trade Treaty and
international humanitarian law, with regards to Israel and Palestine;

and
Calls upon the government of Israel and all other United Nations members to support a process
of repair and transitional justice that will afford democracy, freedom, dignity, and security for all
people of Gaza.

Current as of 28 July 2025
Resolution passed 31 August 202