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”.
David Lammy claims that Gaza is not genocide because not enough Palestinians have died. But genocide is about intent not numbers #GazaGenocide https://t.co/WBvKj6to80
— Diane Abbott (@HackneyAbbott) October 28, 2024
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.
"You're at a food bank and there are children starving in Gaza".
Pro-Palestine advocates confronted UK foreign secretary David Lammy and questioned him about Britain's complicity in the Israeli genocide in Gaza, during a visit he paid to a food bank in Tottenham. pic.twitter.com/kRERPwE0wk
— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) November 7, 2024
‘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.
Today, my independent colleague @AyoubKhanMP asked the PM for his definition of genocide.
His response — which shows a blatant disregard for Palestinian suffering and international law — is disgraceful.
We will keep demanding: stop the genocide in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Ngdf2YN5NL
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) November 13, 2024
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.
LIVE BLOG: 41 Days of Siege in Northern Gaza | HRW: Investigate Israel’s Crimes – Day 405
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)
This is like saying Jack the Stripper didn’t kill enough hookers to make him a serial-killer, like Jack the Ripper.
Tell UK MP Ayoub Khan to remind UK Foreign Sec Lammy and PM Starmer about a law in the UK and its former possessions, that allows someone to be imprisoned for not providing someone in their care such as a dependent child or elderly relative, with the necessities of life. Remind them that as Occupying Power in Gaza and the West Bank, Israel is now in the position of someone with dependents who is denying them the necessities of life.
Even if the spurious numbers game of the government were valid they would do well to remember that the holocaust started with the death of one person. A genocide in progress does not conform to the Foreign Secretary’s and Prime minister’s definition which could never be used to prevent the crime but can be used to punish it after the fact.
Considering Starmer is married to a member of “The Tribe” and his children are members of “The Tribe” and he observes Shabbat and is an ultra-Zionist himself, it is not surprising. Look what “The Tribe” did to Jeremy Corbin. The West is run by “The Tribe” folks. They’ve been busy little bees for the past 150 years giving themselves a makeover so they could take over. They’ve succeeded. Wake up.