Stop the ongoing genocide in Palestine, FIDH’s appeal to the international community

Paris, December 12, 2023. Palestinians are dying in Gaza, every day, every hour. Their living conditions become day after day, inexorably, those of a population whose elimination is scheduled. Last week in Paris, after a long and thorough legal review, the international office of FIDH – the elected body of legal experts and human rights defenders from around the world – adopted A resolution recognizing Israel’s actions against the Palestinian people as “genocide in progress.” Palestinians suffer a constant, permanent tragedy, as unimaginable as it is intentional. This level of violence orchestrated by an occupying force is genocide », declares Alice Mogwe, president of FIDH. “To affirm that it is happening is to affirm that it can, and even must, be stopped. To political leaders and senior officials, we must emphasize that support and assistance to Israel is complicity in this ongoing genocide. You have been warned. »

Since the attacks and hostage-taking of October 7, 2023 committed by Hamas and other armed groups, immediately denounced by FIDH and qualified as war crimes, the Israeli campaign of retaliation has violated international law. More than 16,000 civilians have been killed in Gaza, 70% of them women and children. The vast majority of the Gaza Strip’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced.

Attacks which correspond to the classification of the 1948 Genocide Convention, which defines it as follows: “acts committed with the intention of destroying, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”, in particular by “killing members of the group” and “deliberately subjecting the group to conditions of existence calculated to bring about its total or partial physical destruction”. For the crime to be qualified as such, it must meet two constitutive conditions: An action characterizing the crime and the intention to carry out this crime.

The Israeli army targeted journalists, medical personnel, ambulances, schools, places of worship, universities, shelters and hospitals. More than 60% of Gaza’s homes have been destroyed, and water, electricity, telecommunications and energy infrastructure have been seriously damaged, making living conditions almost impossible for Palestinians. In Gaza, the blockade, planned famine, forced and repeated mass displacements, murder and mutilation of tens of thousands of civilians are today a reality.

Israel’s president, ministers, military generals and spokespeople used the most explicit terms. They spoke of their desire to transform “Gaza into a desert island”, while dehumanizing the Palestinians by claiming to “fight human animals” or by claiming to prioritize “damage and not precision” of their strikes. Thus, not only did the Israeli military commit the actions, but Israeli leaders expressly and publicly indicated that they had the specific intent to destroy the group.

As early as October 13, FIDH sounded the alarm on Israeli crimes, affirming that they could reflect genocidal intent against Palestinians. On October 19 and November 2, experts from the United Nations (UN) also warned of the risk of genocide. In mid-November, FIDH member organizations such as Al-Haq, based in the West Bank, and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in the United States filed a complaint against the President of the United States and against others American officials, unable to prevent the ongoing genocide. A passivity which makes them complicit.

“ This ongoing genocide threatens the entire Palestinian people. Today, Gaza is the center of attention. But in the West Bank, dozens of communities have been forcibly displaced and others face the same fate. In the West Bank, Palestinians are killed almost daily. They are silenced and arrested on both sides of the green line. Israel’s system of colonial apartheid sends a clear and permanent message: unless the apartheid regime is dismantled and crimes go unpunished, there is no future for the Palestinian people anywhere. whether on his land », declares Diana Alzeer, vice-president of FIDH and representative of Al-Haq.

FIDH

Find the resolution here and below: