The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention strongly condemns the Israeli army for murdering a 24-year-old Palestinian man with Down’s syndrome and autism, calling it a “genocidal institution”, Al Jazeera reports.

According to a BBC report citing testimonies from family members, on July 3 Israeli soldiers allowed a combat dog to maul Muhammed Bhar in front of his family causing the young man to bleed from his arm and chest.

The institute based in the United States, said it was “horrified, heartbroken and nauseated by the cruel [Israeli] murder of Muhammed Bhar”.

Nabila Bhar, the mother of the victim, said the family was ordered at gunpoint to leave the house, leaving her son behind with the soldiers. They returned a week later to find him dead, lying on the floor with a tourniquet on his arm and blood around him.

“The cruel and heartbreaking July 3 murder of Muhammed Bhar, 24, by [Israeli] soldiers in Gaza is a genocidal life force atrocity,” the US-based think tank said in a statement.

“The pattern of atrocity establishes the [Israeli army] as a genocidal institution,” it added.