IINZ Welcomes UN Acknowldgement

The Israel Institute of New Zealand welcomes the United Nations call for “full accountability for the multitude of alleged crimes committed against civilians in Israel in the 7 October attacks” following the findings in the publication of a UN commissioned independent report.

However, the Institute is also urging the New Zealand Government to push for further action in the wake of the report.

“A full three months after the Hamas-led massacre, it is important that the United Nations is acknowledging the crimes committed and calling for accountability” says IINZ co-director, Dr David Cumin.

He points, in particular, to the description of the attacks, by the Report Authors, who say that “These acts constitute gross violations of international law, amounting to war crimes which, given the number of victims and the extensive premeditation and planning of the attacks, may also qualify as crimes against humanity".

“We agree, but would contend that even this description does not go far enough”

“The 07 Oct massacre was a savage attack in which the highest number of Jews were murdered in a single day since the Holocaust, and terrorists gleefully posted some of the absolute barbarism to social media. In the face of such savagery, nothing less than a full condemnation of the actions of Hamas by the UN general assembly will suffice. It’s a small, but important, step to have the United Nations finally seek accountability.”

“For the UN to truly be seen as an organisation with integrity, now, would be for them to investigate the decades of support given to Hamas via UNRWA. Our government should also be asking some hard questions about how much we have contributed to the conflict by funding UNRWA - which runs schools that glorify terror and employs staff who incite violence on social media; and why our government has chosen not to designate all of Hamas as a terror organisation.”

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