We demand:
We speak as Jews. The destruction of Gaza is not in our name. It is a violation of our values of justice, compassion, truth and peace.
On October 7th Hamas committed a war crime and crime against humanity, slaughtering more than 1,100 people and taking some 250 hostages, mostly civilians.
Israel has responded with ferocious, continuing collective punishment. It flouts the principles of proportionality and discrimination central to the protection of civilians in time of war. It is also a war crime and a crime against humanity.
Holocaust scholars are warning of a genocide in Gaza. The recent International Court of Justice ruling has given the same warning and has ordered Israel to desist from all practices that could be genocidal. On 16 January 2024, eight United Nations Special Rappoprteurs on Human Rights said in their report “Our alarm for the unfolding genocide…”
More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed, more than three times the number killed in all six previous Israeli offensives. 1.9 million people have been displaced. The deliberate destruction of hospitals, shelter, sanitation, clean water and food supplies is causing a public health catastrophe.
Many Palestinians from Gaza have been taken prisoner and kept in detention camps in Israel. Evidence of their serious mistreatment is the subject of a petition to the Israeli High Court by several Israeli human rights NGOs. The petition states, “Evidence has mounted on what is allegedly happening at the facility, which reveals an unimaginable reality of surgeries performed without anaesthesia, holding detainees in painful positions for days and handcuffing that leads to amputation”
Many of those taken prisoner are acknowledged by the Israeli Prison service not to be combatants. They can be classified as hostages.
António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, spoke truth to the Security Council on 24 October. He said “the deadly assault by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum… the Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation…”
Israel is now addicted to occupation and settlement. Without substantial economic and diplomatic pressure from the international community, it will never change. This cannot be allowed to continue.
Our government has been complicit in Israel’s collective punishment of Gaza.
We call on people to write to their MPs, demanding that our government:
If you agree with what we have said, look through our website to see what we do and consider joining us. You will find joining information here.