A group of Italian professors and researchers are planning to boycott Israeli academic institutions, saying the schools are complicit in "violations of international law and human rights".

Some 170 scholars from more than 50 Italian universities and research organisations have signed a pledge committing to the boycott. The signatories described themselves as "a solid critical block of scholars" who were "no longer willing to tolerate Israeli academic complicity with Israel's state violence".

"The utter lack of any serious condemnation on their part since the foundation of the state of Israel led to the initiative," the authors said in a statement.

The academics - who teach and work at prominent universities, including the University of Bologna, the University of Rome and the University of Milan - noted that they were part of a growing global trend of scholars taking a stand for Palestinian rights.

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