DERRY JOURNAL Editorial: War crimes must be stopped and international community must prevent genocide
New Year and resolutions. Is it impossible the one adopted by the UN on December 12 calling for an ‘immediate humanitarian ceasefire’ in Gaza might in 2024 receive the support of the US and others who equivocated three weeks ago, including Britain?
The vast majority of the world called for an end to the slaughter. The US, Israel, Austria, Czechia, Guatemala, Liberia, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Paraguay voted against.
The UK, Argentina, Bulgaria, Cape Verde, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Malawi, Marshall Islands, Netherlands, Palau, Panama, Romania, Slovakia, South Sudan, Togo, Tonga, Ukraine and Uruguay abstained. Shame on them all. They have eyes to see like the rest of us.
Archbishop Eamon Martin started 2024 with an apposite question for those who look away even as figures now show almost 1 per cent of the population (21,672) of the Strip has been killed since October. Over 15,000 women and children have been slaughtered. Are these not war crimes?
The UN defines genocide as killing people, causing serious mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to bring about a people’s physical destruction, introducing measures to prevent births or forcibly transferring children, with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Jurists might argue over whether what is happening in Gaza is a genocide or not but the international community has a responsibility to prevent it.