Human Rights Group Urges NZ Govt To Act Now To Protect Palestinian Civilians

Justice for Palestine urges the New Zealand Government to show moral leadership and break with a double standard on violence: that only Palestinians must renounce violence, and only Israel has the right to defend itself.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement on Monday, “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. […] No electricity, no food, no water, no gas—it’s all closed.” He went on to describe Palestinians as “human animals.” Article 33 of the Geneva Convention prohibits collective penalties. The announcement signals imminent, large-scale war crimes against Palestinians. With 2.3 million people—almost half of these children—in only 365 km², Civilians in the Gaza Strip will bear the brunt of this siege.

“Western world leaders are once again granting the Israeli regime a blank cheque to commit war crimes. We saw this in vivid detail from Gaza in 2009 and 2014. However, with the scale of what is being foreshadowed by Israeli leadership, we fear we are about to witness genocidal violence against the Palestinian people in real time. This is heavy language, but it is the truth. We are overdue political honesty about how we stop this violence, and it is not by further brutalising the people of Gaza,” says Justice for Palestine spokesperson Nadia Abu-Shanab.

Palestinians have tried over generations to engage with non-violent mechanisms to end the ongoing colonisation of their land, in the face of widespread human rights abuses. Abu-Shanab explains: “For 75 years Palestinians have faced mass expulsion and dispossession. Since 2007 the people of Gaza, the descendants of hundreds of stolen villages destroyed in the creation of Israel, have been hostages in an open-air prison. Gaza has been repeatedly subject to incursions, bombardment and massacres. Oppression is the root cause of the violence. There will be no peace until there is justice for Palestinians.”

Marilyn Garson, of Alternative Jewish Voices Aotearoa, recently wrote: “To call today’s act ‘unprovoked’ is wilful blindness. [...] Israel is carrying out the longest, now-illegal, now-apartheid occupation in modern history. Gaza has been illegally blockaded for 17 years, confining more than two million mostly civilian human beings in deteriorating conditions, subjecting them to repeated bombardments and ceaseless deprivation.”

The choice is clear. New Zealand can lead an effort, which millions around the world are calling for, and act with urgency to protect human life. Or it can follow the failed political leadership of Israel and the United States, who propose that peace and security are only possible via the military subjugation and strangulation of Palestinians. The truth is that peace can only be achieved with an end to the siege on Gaza, and an end to the continued occupation and colonisation of the West Bank. We cannot stand by and let Israel kill thousands of Palestinians with impunity under the illusion that this will lead to a better future for anyone.

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