A hearing in the case of pro-Palestinian protesters arrested for breaking into and vandalizing the Stanford University president’s office was marked Tuesday by heated discussions over the word genocide.

In the court session focused on pretrial motions — which attorneys and the judge use to lay out the ground rules for a trial — a debate over whether the term genocide should be allowed during the proceedings elicited the most impassioned arguments from defense attorneys and a deputy district attorney alike.

At one point, defense attorneys and the county prosecutor verbally sparred over whether Israel’s actions in Gaza being characterized as a genocide is a settled fact.

“Using the word genocide is the same as saying the sky is blue. It is what it is,” Leah Gillis, a defense attorney in

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