The world’s leading genocide scholars’ association has passed a resolution saying that the legal criteria have been met to establish that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, its president has said, Reuters reports.

Eighty-six per cent of those who voted among the 500-member International Association of Genocide Scholars backed the resolution declaring: “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)”.

There was no immediate response from the Israeli foreign ministry. Israel has in the past strongly denied that its actions in Gaza amount to genocide and insisted they are justified as ‘self-defence’. It is contesting a case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague that accuses it of genocide.