Israel formally recognises Armenian World War I 'genocide'

Israel has unanimously recognised the mass killings of Armenians during World War I as what it called a genocide.

The move had been proposed by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar and was approved by the Israeli government on Sunday.

In a post on X, Sa'ar thanked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his support on the matter and said Israel had "fulfilled a moral duty by recognizing the historical truth, and rejecting attempts to deny it".

The Armenian "genocide" refers to the systematic elimination and deportation of Armenian Christian people living in the Ottoman Empire from spring 1915 to autumn 1916. It is estimated that between 664,000 and 1.2 million Armenians died as a result, per the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Israel's decision to recognise it as a genocide comes amid deteriorating relations with Turkey, which have been strained since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023.

Turkey has resisted calls for it to recognise the Armenia massacres as genocide.

The United States, France, Germany and Italy are among the countries to have recognised the killings as genocide.

"The Armenian Genocide remains to this day the subject of an institutionalized campaign of denial and minimization, including a manipulative rewriting of history, mainly by the Turkish government," Sa'ar said at a cabinet meeting, according to a press release issued by his office. "I think the time has come for Israel, as a Jewish state, to formally accept this position".

The decision still requires ratification by parliament.