‘Unacceptable’ – British PM, Foreign Secretary Claim Israel Not Committing Genocide

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. (David Evans, Labour Party, via Keir Starmer TW Page)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

Khan described the foreign secretary’s statement as unacceptable citing Article two of the United Nations Genocide Convention.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has claimed that Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza, the Anadolu news agency reported.    

During questions at the House of Commons on Wednesday, Starmer was asked by Independent Lawmaker Ayoub Khan to comment on a previous statement by Foreign Secretary David Lammy, in which he denied the genocide in Gaza.

Lammy recently alleged that the term genocide referred to “when millions of people lost their lives in crises like Rwanda, the Second World War in the Holocaust” and that using it to describe Gaza “now undermines (its) seriousness”.

Khan described the foreign secretary’s statement as unacceptable citing Article two of the United Nations Genocide Convention.

“Article two of the United Nations Genocide Convention makes it explicitly clear that genocide is not about numbers, it’s about intent,” Khan said, adding that the “intent of the Israeli government and the IDF has been explicitly clear in words and in actions over the past 400 days, more than 45,000 innocent men, women and children killed.”

“Will the Prime Minister share (Lammy’s) definition of genocide with this House?” the lawmaker asked Starmer.

The prime minister answered by saying that “it would be wise to start a question like that by reference to what happened in October of last year”.

“I’m well aware of the definition of genocide, and that is why I’ve never described this as and referred to it as genocide,” he added.

‘Glaring Genocide’

Starmer’s statement and his foreign secretary’s comments before him come in contradiction with declarations by at least 13 countries and several UN agencies and international organizations qualifying Israel’s raging war in Gaza as a genocide.    

The UN special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, has repeatedly reiterated that the atrocities being committed in the Strip qualify indeed as genocide.

Moreover, South Africa has filed its memorial to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which it says contains evidence that Israel has violated the Genocide Convention in its ongoing military offensive in the Gaza Strip which has killed over 43,000 Palestinians.

“The filing of this memorial takes place at a time when Israel is intensifying the killing of civilians in Gaza and now seems intent to follow a similar path of destruction in Lebanon,” the country’s Presidency said in a statement on October 28.

The case was first brought by South Africa against Israel in December last year and culminated in the filing of the memorial at the UN’s highest court in The Hague.

The statement said the memorial “contains evidence which shows how the government of Israel has violated the genocide convention by promoting the destruction of Palestinians living in Gaza.”

“The glaring genocide in Gaza is there for all who are not blinded by prejudice to see,” the statement said.

“The international community cannot stand idly by while innocent civilians – including women, children, hospital workers, humanitarian aid workers and journalists, are killed for simply being. That is a world we cannot accept,” the Presidency stressed.

At least 13 countries have joined South Africa’s case at the ICJ, including Columbia, Bolivia, Spain, Turkiye and Ireland.

Genocide Continues

Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.

Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.

According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 43,712 Palestinians have been killed, and 103,258 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.

Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.

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Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.

Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.

The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.

The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.

Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety. 

(PC, Anadolu)

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