- Signatories include prominent Holocaust and genocide studies scholars, as well as many international law scholars.
With 3000 people killed, 12,500 wounded, over one million people displaced, and large areas in the Gaza Strip reduced to rubble, over 800 scholars and practitioners of international law have signed a public statement warning of the possibility of an Israeli genocide against Palestinians in the besieged strip.
Signatories to the statement, issued on October 15, include prominent Holocaust and genocide studies scholars, as well as many international law, conflict studies, and genocide studies scholars.
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“As scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies and genocide studies, we are compelled to sound the alarm about the possibility of the crime of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip,” the statement published by Twailr Academy read.
“Between 7 October and 9:00 am on 15 October, there have been 2,329 Palestinians killed and 9,042 Palestinians injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza, including over 724 children, huge swathes of neighborhoods and entire families across Gaza have been obliterated.
“Israel’s Defense Minister ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip prohibiting the supply of fuel, electricity, water and other essential necessities. This terminology itself indicates an intensification of an already illegal, potentially genocidal siege to an outright destructive assault.”
Killing Civilians
The statement came two days before the strike on Al-Ahli Gaza hospital packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter Tuesday which killed more than 500 civilians.
Commenting on the hospital massacre, Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said,
“Words fail me. Tonight, hundreds of people were killed – horrifically – in a massive strike at Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, including patients, healthcare workers and families that had been seeking refuge in and around the hospital. Once again the most vulnerable. This is totally unacceptable.”
The scholars’ statement called for an urgent action to stop the ongoing massacre of civilians in Gaza.
“Palestinian human rights organizations, Jewish civil society groups, Holocaust and genocide studies scholars and others have by now warned of an imminent genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza. We emphasize the existence of a serious risk of genocide being committed in the Gaza Strip,” the statement added.
“The undersigned urgently appeal to states to take concrete and meaningful steps to individually and collectively prevent genocidal acts, in line with their legal duty to prevent the crime of genocide.
“They must protect the Palestinian population, and ensure that Israel refrains from any further incitement to genocide and from the perpetration of conduct prohibited by Article II of the Genocide Convention.
“We call on all relevant UN bodies, including the Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, as well as the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to immediately intervene, to carry out the necessary investigations and invoke the necessary warning procedures to protect the Palestinian population from genocide.”