Sinn Féin Newry and Armagh MP Dáire Hughes, has said that a report issued through the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is definitive confirmation that the Israeli state is involved in genocide against the Palestinian people.
The Newry and Armagh MP said: “The report by ‘The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel’ confirms definitively that the Israeli state is conducting genocide.
“This is not the first report to pronounce on the reality of the genocide being inflicted on the Palestinian people; however, it must now focus the minds of those states that continue to allow Israel’s terrorist acts to continue with impunity.
“This report should be a call to concerted action, coming as it does against the immediate backdrop of Israel’s terrorist attack in Doha, and the intensification of its bombardment, particularly in Gaza City, against the defenceless civilian population.
“In the last 24 hours, the Arab-Islamic Summit has issued a decisive and unprecedented condemnation of Israel’s actions. Those states within the Arab and Islamic world should now combine with democratic opinion in the global north and elsewhere, where action has already been taken against the Israeli state, to act in concert to prevent the total annihilation of the Palestinian people. They should collectively join the South African legal case at the International Court of Justice.
“Israel is a rogue, terrorist state. It must now be subject to full boycott, divestment and sanction measures at an inter-state level. Comprehensive arms embargoes must be imposed, and trade and diplomatic relations should be terminated.
“The full weight of international influence should be brought to bear on the United States to ensure it exercises the pressure upon Israel, which it has not used, to end this genocidal war immediately, through a full and binding ceasefire, and unimpeded entry of all the necessary humanitarian aid to alleviate the starvation and suffering in Gaza.
“The actions taken by the United Nations (UN) against South Africa during the era of apartheid must now be applied against Israel. Global action should be mobilised fully to enact the ‘justice for peace resolution’ in the UN, to circumvent the repeated abuse of the veto within the UN Security Council, which has given political cover to Benjamin Netanyahu and his out-of-control regime.
“In light of this UN report, Israel should no longer be allowed to enjoy the status of UN membership. It is a pariah state and must be treated as such. Its defiance of international humanitarian law and the Genocide Convention demand action by the UN General Assembly. There must be total international isolation of the Israeli state.”
CRÍOCH/ENDS
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