The Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023 was the most traumatic event in modern Jewish history. However, everything happened after this date and especially the trial at the International Court of Justice pushed the 7th of October out of public view and professional discussion. Concerned intellectuals, politically engaged academics and lawyers chose to take this event out of the brackets. The attitude "this did not happen in a vacuum" focuses media attention on the previous years of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Current accusations of Israel based on silencing (if not denying) the atrocities of Hamas.

Events of this day should not be forgotten or turned into a political bargaining chip. They require a clear qualification, both professional and public. In 1944, Raphael Lemkin coined the term "genocide" to describe the mass ind iscriminate murder of civilians because of their ethnicity, religion, citizenship, or place of residence. Since then, the concept of genocide has evolved, but its basic constitutive features have remained: indiscriminateness and genocidal intent.

Were the events of October 7 a genocidal act?
To answer this question in an open and academic discussion, we are organizing a conference, inviting lawyers, historians, sociologists, and those who all these days carefully collected evidence of what had happened.

The goal of the conference is to present and discuss the key issues of genocide and to draw the attention of the international academic community to the important legal, historical and sociological issues in order to formulate the basis for public opinion to support Israel.
As a result of the conference several papers will be published in analytical resources and scientific papers would be started. The results of the conference will be published based on the conference reports and discussions.