On the last day of August, the world’s leading body of genocide experts reached a grim consensus: Israel’s war on Gaza is genocide.
In a historic resolution, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS)—a 500-member organization representing the most prominent researchers in the field—declared that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
The vote was decisive: 86 percent of participating members endorsed the resolution.
“This is a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is going on in Gaza is genocide,” said IAGS president Melanie O’Brien.
Not a War That Began on October 7
Israel points to the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack—which killed around 1,200 Israelis and resulted in over 250 hostages—as the trigger for the current offensive. But Palestinians and genocide scholars emphasize that Gaza’s ordeal long predates 2023.
From the 1948 Nakba, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled and Gaza’s population swelled with refugees, to the decades of occupation, blockade, and repeated military assaults, the strip has been subjected to continuous forms of lethal force.
Far from a sudden war, Gaza’s history is one of unbroken violence, in which the present offensive represents the most devastating escalation.
📌 Sidebar: A History of Assaults on Gaza
- 1948 (Nakba): Gaza becomes home to refugees expelled from Palestine.
- 1950s–60s: Israeli raids and crackdowns kill hundreds.
- 1967: Israel occupies Gaza; settlements and restrictions deepen.
- 1970–71: Counterinsurgency razes neighborhoods, displaces thousands.
- 1990s–2000s: Closures and economic suffocation intensify.
- 2007–present: Total blockade imposed; humanitarian crisis entrenched.
- 2008–09, 2012, 2014, 2021, 2022: Large-scale Israeli offensives leave thousands dead.
- 2018–19: Great March of Return protests met with sniper fire.
- 2023–25: Current offensive—now named as genocide by the world’s genocide experts.
A Catalogue of Atrocities
The IAGS resolution, finalized in July and passed August 31, outlines the basis for its genocide finding:
- Mass killings of civilians.
- Starvation and denial of aid, with famine now confirmed in parts of Gaza.
- Forced displacement of nearly the entire population.
- Systematic destruction of homes, schools, hospitals, and cultural sites.
- Targeting of health workers and infrastructure in hundreds of documented strikes.
By July 2025, more than 59,000 Palestinians had been killed and over 143,000 injured, according to UN data. Over 50,000 children are among the dead or wounded. Thousands more remain entombed in rubble.
Pull-quote: “This did not begin on October 7. For Gaza, lethal force and engineered deprivation are a through-line from 1948 to today.”
Starvation, Famine, and Collapse
In August 2025, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) declared famine conditions in Gaza Governorate, with over half a million people in famine and spread imminent elsewhere. The World Health Organization warned that disease and malnutrition were overtaking Gaza’s shattered health system.
The UN humanitarian office (OCHA) reported 62,122 fatalities as of Aug. 21, 2025. Convoys of aid have been blocked, and civilians seeking food have been targeted in deadly strikes.
Timeline: How the Legal Case Built
- 1948–present: Gaza subjected to displacement, blockade, and repeated assaults.
- December 2023 — South Africa files genocide case against Israel at the ICJ.
- January 26, 2024 — ICJ rules genocide in Gaza is “plausible”, orders provisional measures.
- March & May 2024 — ICJ reaffirms humanitarian orders.
- Nov. 21, 2024 — ICC issues arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant over crimes in Gaza.
- July 28, 2025 — IAGS drafts resolution.
- Aug. 31, 2025 — IAGS votes: Israel is committing genocide.
Now Israel’s manmade famine deepens, casualties mount, and nearly the entire population of Gaza is displaced, the claim that genocide is unfolding has moved beyond activism to become mainstream within academia and international law.
Why It Matters
The IAGS resolution does not carry legal force, but it adds weight to ongoing cases at the ICJ and ICC, and strengthens arguments for sanctions and arms embargoes under the Genocide Convention and the Arms Trade Treaty.
Above all, it affirms what Palestinians have long insisted: that the destruction of Gaza is not an aberration of war, but the continuation of a decades-long campaign of dispossession and violence stretching back to 1948.
The Bottom Line
The genocide scholars’ resolution does not end the bombardment or lift the blockade. But it reframes the narrative: this is no longer about proportionality or collateral damage. The world’s foremost experts have said it plainly:
Israel’s Gaza war is genocide.