Overview

• This week’s UN investigative commission report concludes that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
• Commentators across Europe and other regions have condemned the killings of civilians in Gaza, using the label of genocide.
• Raphael Lemkin introduced the word in 1944 to describe a coordinated plan to destroy the foundations of national groups.
• In 1948 the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, establishing genocide as an international crime.
• Writers invoke precedents such as the Armenian deportations of 1915–1923, widely cited as the first genocide recognized by the international community.