Gaza: Amnesty International says that France must recognize the current genocide

While France recognized the Palestinian state on Monday, Amnesty International believes that this decision, although importantly on the diplomatic level, cannot hide “the current genocide” in the Gaza Strip and asks Paris to recognize it “without delay”.

“This recognition, if it constitutes an advance, will not end the genocide that the population of Gaza undergoes or to the intensification of colonization in occupied West Bank,” said Anne Savinel-Barras, president of Amnesty International France, in a statement published on Monday.

The human rights defense organization is pressing France to support a full embargo on weapons and double -use goods to Israel, to execute the judgment mandates of the International Criminal Court (ICC) targeting Israeli officials, and to mobilize its European partners to impose sanctions.

This declaration comes as a UN commission of inquiry has just concluded that Israel commits a crime of genocide in Gaza, where the Israeli army has been leading a new offensive on the city of Gaza for several days. Several international organizations (Human Rights Watch, FIDH), Israeli (B’tsem, Physicians for Human Rights) and Palestinian (Al Haq, PCHR) also qualify the situation of genocide, an analysis now “widely shared by lawyers, historians and international experts”, recalls Amnesty.

According to the NGO, massive and indiscriminate bombing, organized famine, deprivation of medical care and forced trips “condemn civilians to camp survival”. Amnesty is also alarmed by massive displacement projects of the Gaza population, mentioned by American and Israeli officials, which she assimilates to “a new war crime”.

Amnesty calls on France to suspend the association agreement between the European Union and Israel, to lift the blockade imposed in Gaza, and to demand an immediate cease-fire. The NGO insists that Paris respects its commitments under the 1948 convention on the prevention of the genocide, including by performing the mandates of the ICC against Israeli leaders, “starting with Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu”, if they came to tread the French soil.

“Recognition of the Palestinian state is a step, but it is not enough: France must appoint and fight the current genocide,” concludes Anne Savinel-Barras.