New Delhi: The board of the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA), the current edition of which is ongoing in Mumbai, has decided to suspend Israel from participation in future Olympiads.

The IOAA's international board, its highest governing body which includes representatives from all 64 countries that participate in the Olympiad, also decided in its August 18 meeting to allow Israeli students to attend future editions but as individuals and not a national team.

The IOAA is currently headed by the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education's Aniket Sule.

Earlier, on August 1, 564 members of the global scientific community, including those from India, wrote the IOAA's international board urging it to consider banning Israel from participating in the Olympiad in light of its allegedly preventing Palestine from organising a full team this year and against the backdrop of its alleged violations of international law in Gaza and the West Bank.

“We understand that students from Gaza were prevented from traveling for the event” in Mumbai, the scientists said, adding to note that the sole participating Palestinian student in this year's Olympiad is from the West Bank's Jenin, where Israeli operations this year have displaced tens of thousands of residents.

Israel's actions – which the scientists placed in the context of its brutal military campaign in Gaza, which per the UN has involved killing hungry Palestinians trying to access food aid – are in breach of the Olympiad's mission of promoting science and the requirement that members respect students' human rights, they said.

They had also asked the board to continue barring Israel from participating in the Olympiad “until it has ceased to place obstacles in the participation of Palestinian students” and “complied with its obligations under international law”.

Tel Aviv, which pre-registered for the Olympiad in Mumbai this year, did not send a team to participate in the event, said Suvrat Raju, faculty at the International Centre for Theoretical Studies in Bengaluru. Per the Indian Express, it has not participated in any edition of the IOAA since it began in 2007.

“We hope that this suspension will send a clear message to the Israeli government,” which is that “the world is outraged by its actions in Palestine and it must change course immediately”, said Raju, who was also one of the signatories of the August 1 letter.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had virtually addressed this year's edition of the Olympiad – which features participation from secondary school students – on its inaugural day on August 12. The event will end on August 22.

Israel began its military campaign in Gaza, which was controlled by Hamas, after the latter carried out a terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 Israelis and taking about 250 others hostage.

Amid Israel's military campaign over 61,700 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, with an estimated 17,430 of them children, per the coastal strip's health ministry.

Numerous organisations, including a special committee of the UN, and scholars have likened Israel’s campaign to genocide.

India said late last month that a “ceasefire must be put in place” in Gaza, whose people it pointed out “grapple daily with acute shortages of food and fuel, inadequate medical services and lack of access to education”.

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