IHRC is among over 200 international figures and organisations that have come together to write to the United Nations demanding that it fulfil the purpose for which it was created and rein in the out of control Israeli state.

The signatories, who come from 29 countries and include prominent politicians, academics, activists and human rights groups, urge the international body to rise to the challenge presented by a reprobate and runaway state that insists on riding roughshod over international law and committing ever more repugnant crimes against humanity.

The letter comes as the UN, which was set up in the aftermath of the Second World War to administer a system based on nation states’ adherence to shared laws, has found it difficult to halt or even slow down the genocide.

The number and breadth of signatories reflects a growing desperation for action to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza that has so far killed at least 60,000 people, the majority of them women and children.

In addition to the shootings and bombings, a cruel policy of food and water deprivation, designed to make conditions uninhabitable for Gaza’s residents so that they will leave the enclave, has turned many Palestinians into living skeletons.

The horrific images of emaciated bodies of innocent children, reminiscent of the Nazi Holocaust and more recently the genocide in Bosnia, speak to a dereliction of collective responsibility and a disavowal of the promise, “Never Again”.

It is high time that the international body listened and acted according to the will of the global majority. The sheer magnitude of the horrors being inflicted on Gaza compels the UN to act forcefully and decisively in a manner consistent with its responsibilities and proportionate to the gravity of Israel’s crimes.
We can no longer sit idly by while a genocidal entity, driven by the racial supremacist logic of colonial conquest and domination, steamrollers through the region, laying waste to lives, ancient cultures, the environment and even the concept of international law itself.

The letter, addressed to António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, reminds the UN that it its own complicity, connivance and failures to check this rogue state and hold it to account that is at the root of the atrocities we see it perpetrating today. At every breach, the international community has failed to censure Israel for its repeated human rights abuses, affording it an immunity that has engendered arrogance and contempt for international law. By blessing, acquiescing or simply ignoring its ill-gotten gains, the UN has only emboldened Israel to commit more and worse crimes against humanity.

If we are going to salvage the architecture of a rules-based order from the rubble of Gaza, the UN needs to step up and assert the values it claims to uphold. That means acting now to stop Israel from annihilating lives, properties and lands. [ENDS]

For more information or comment please contact the Press Office on (+44) 208 904 0222  or (+44) 7958 522196 or email media@ihrc.org