Over the last few days, we have witnessed Israel undertaking a crime of genocide against the on the Palestinian people in the besieged Gaza strip. Senior Israeli officials have made statements with genocidal intent and followed them up with actions that deliberately inflict on the Palestinian people conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction, amounting to the crime of genocide as defined in international law. This is not an isolated situation but is an extension of systematic grave injustices the Palestinian people have been subjected to, for over a century.

UN agencies working on ground, Palestinian civil society organisations, other international organisations, and experts are documenting the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe including the indiscriminate bombing of civilians and civilian infrastructure, the cutting off of water, electricity, the denial of entry of humanitarian convoys of food, medicine, fuel, and other supplies necessary for the survival of the population and forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza.  The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, has warned that we may be witnessing a repeat of the 1948 Nakba and 1967 Naksa. As Israel continues its genocidal campaign on the Palestinian people, this webinar aims to bring together Palestinian scholars and other legal experts in the crime of genocide to discuss the current situation in Gaza while situating it in the wider settler colonial context in Palestine.

The webinar will address the following questions:

• What is the legal substance of Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide / Rome Statute of the ICC Art 6?
• What is the application of the Genocide Convention/Rome Statute in the current Israeli assault on Gaza and the wider Palestinian context?
• What are the obligations incumbent on Third States and the international community at large to protect the Palestinian population against genocide?

Speakers:

• Maha Abdallah: Researcher at the Law and Development Research group, University of Antwerp
• Rez Segal: Associate Professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University and the endowed professor in the study of modern genocide.
• Arnesa Buljusmié-Kustura: Genocide Researcher & Survivor, Author of “Letters from Diaspora”
• A witness from Gaza.

Moderator:

• Noura Erakat: Human rights attorney, Associate Professor of Africana Studies and the Program of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, and author of “Justice for Some”