The Oxford Union has voted that the “apartheid” Israeli regime is “responsible for genocide” of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli regime launched a war on the people in Gaza on October 7, 2023, following a retaliatory operation by the Palestinians.

Since then, it has killed at least 44,363 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 105,070 others, forcing almost the entire population of the Palestinian territory to flee their homes.

The student debating society, founded in 1823 in Oxford, England, voted on the motion after a heated debate between speakers from pro-Palestinian groups and Israeli supporters.

The Oxford Union held the unprecedented debate on Thursday night on the motion: “This house believes Israel is an apartheid state responsible for genocide.” The motion was carried with an overwhelming majority of 278 to 59.

One pro-Israeli speaker, Yoseph Haddad, was even told to leave the chamber for lack of decorum after calling the audience “terrorist supporters” when he was heckled during his speech.

The speakers in favor of the motion included Union President Ebrahim Osman Mowafy, Israeli-American activist and author Miko Peled, Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd and prominent writer Susan Abulhawa.

Peled described the October 7 operation as “heroic”. According to Oxford University’s student newspaper, Cherwell, he described Operation al-Aqsa Floiod as “acts of heroism of a people who were oppressed.”

Osman-Mowafy, who stood in for prominent American academic Norman Finkelstein that could not come, spoke about 19-year-old Shaban al-Daloum, who was burnt alive in an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza hospital, describing the death as part of the Israeli committed “holocaust” against Gazans.

The Oxford Union debate comes days after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant over the genocide against Palestinians.

Susan Akram, director of the International Human Rights Clinic at Boston University School of Law, stressed the role that civil society needed to play to mount pressure on Tel Aviv to end the war.

“Public opinion and civil society have a huge role to play in pressuring their governments to comply with the ICC. In fact, civil society has already played a significant role in submitting evidence to both the ICC and ICJ that has contributed to both courts’ decisions and orders,” Akram said.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed 44,363 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 105,070 others.

Moreover, at least 10,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the strip.

The Israelis have also been committing war crimes such as starving the population and intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population in the besieged territory.