The largest professional organisation of scholars studying genocide says Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The determination on Monday by the International Association of Genocide Scholars — which has about 500 members worldwide, including a number of Holocaust experts — could serve to further isolate Israel in global public opinion and adds to a growing chorus of organisations that have used the term for Israel’s actions in Gaza. 

Israel rejected the accusation and called the resolution an “embarrassment to the legal profession”.

“Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide,” according to group’s resolution, which was supported by 86 per cent of those who voted. The organisation did not release the specifics of the voting.

“People who are experts in the study of genocide can see this situation for what it is,” Melanie O’Brien, the organisation’s president and a professor of international law at the University of Western Australia, told The Associated Press.

In the October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war, Hamas-led militants killed some 1200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251. Forty-eight hostages remain in Gaza, about 20 of whom Israel believes are alive.

In Israel’s ensuing offensive, large swathes of Gaza have been levelled and most of the territory’s more than 2 million people have been displaced. More than 63,000 Palestinians have died, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters or civilians but that around half have been women and children.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. The United Nations and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes the figures but has not provided its own.

The scholars’ 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”.

It begins with an acknowledgment that Hamas’ attack “constitutes international crimes”.

Genocide was codified in a 1948 convention drawn up after the horrors of the Holocaust that defines it as acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

The UN and many Western countries have said only a court can rule on whether the crime has been committed. A case against Israel is before the UN’s highest court.

Israel — founded in part as a refuge in the wake of the Holocaust, when some 6 million European Jews were murdered — vehemently denied it is committing genocide.

“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.

Israel says Hamas is prolonging the war by not surrendering and releasing the hostages. In recent days, it began the initial stages of a new offensive and declared Gaza City a combat zone.

The scholars group, founded in 1994, has previously held that China’s treatment of the minority Muslim Uyghurs and Myanmar’s crackdown on Rohingya Muslims meet the threshold for genocide.

In 2006, the organisation said statements by then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in which he called for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” had “genocidal intent”.

In July, two prominent Israeli rights groups — B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel — said their country is committing genocide in Gaza. The organisations do not reflect mainstream thinking in Israel, but it marked the first time that local Jewish-led organisations have made such accusations.

International human rights groups have also levelled the allegation.

Meanwhile, South Africa has accused Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention at the International Court of Justice — an allegation Israel rejects.

The court does not have a police force to implement its ruling, which could take years, but if a nation believes another member has failed to comply with an ICJ order, it can report that to the UN Security Council.

The council is able to impose sanctions and even authorize military action, but each of the five permanent members holds a veto, including Israel’s staunchest ally, the United States. US President Donald Trump has said he does not believe genocide is taking place.