 "'Based on Hamas's lies': Israel rejects Gaza ‘genocide’ charge by world's top scholars body")
After the world’s largest organisation of genocide scholars declared that Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip met the legal definition of genocide, the Israeli government on Monday rejected the declaration and said it was based on “lies” of Hamas.
The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), which has around 500 members, passed a resolution on August 31 with 86 per cent of voting members declaring 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)”.
The IAGS further said 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.
The Article II of the UN genocide convention defines it as act “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.
ALSO READ — Israel's methods in Gaza war consistent with 'genocide': UN Special Committee
Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Israel’s campaign of aerial bombardment and ground offensives have r educed the vast majority of Gaza to rubble , displaced nearly the entire 2.2 million population of Gaza, and killed tens of thousands — with civilians outnumbering terrorists as per Israel’s own admission. The UN-backed body that monitors hunger has declared famine in Gaza City and surrounding areas .
Palestinians in Gaza face acute shortage of food and other essentials as a result of Israel’s policy of restricting the flow of humanitarian aid. In addition to dozens of deaths from hunger, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in recent months in attacks at food distribution sites that Palestinians have attributed to Israel. In July, the UN published a video that showed Israel firing at Palestinians waiting for a UN food convoy.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsIrrespective of the worldwide condemnation of its actions, Israel has launched a renewed offensive to take over Gaza City and has ended temporary pauses in bombardment it had announced a few weeks back under pressure from the international community.
Israel calls genocide declaration ‘disgraceful’, ’embarrassment’
Rejection the declaration, the Israeli foreign ministry in a statement called it “disgraceful” and “an embarrassment to the legal profession and to any academic standard”, according to The Times of Israel.
The ministry said that the declaration was based entirely on “Hamas’s campaign of lies and the laundering of those lies by others”.
“For the first time, ‘Genocide Scholars’ accuse the very victim of genocide — despite Hamas’s attempted genocide against the Jewish people, murdering 1,200 people, raping women, burning families alive, and declaring its goal of killing every Jew,” the statement further said.
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