[[link removed]]

THE CONSENSUS IS CLEAR: IT’S GENOCIDE.  
[[link removed]]


 

Raji Sourani
September 23, 2025
The Guardian
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed].]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ There is a UN convention for exactly this kind of horror: the
convention for the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide.
When will the world act on it? _

Displaced Palestinians flee northern Gaza along the coastal road
toward the south, after Israel's military says its expanded operation
in Gaza City has begun and warns residents to leave, Tuesday. , Abdel
Kareem Hana/AP

 

Israel has committed and continues to commit genocide in Gaza. That is
the conclusion of a UN commission report
[[link removed]].
Since the release of the report last week, Palestine has finally been
recognised
[[link removed]]
as an independent state by the UK and a number of other countries. In
his announcement at the weekend, Keir Starmer called the death and
destruction in Gaza “utterly intolerable”. This recognition comes
too late and is still conditional, but has the UK government indeed
now stopped tolerating Israel’s devastation of Gaza? Has anything
changed for the people there who are being starved and bombed? Far
from it.

Even as the UN publishes the findings of its independent commission,
and a flag is raised
[[link removed]]
outside the Palestinian mission in London, mass displacement and
killing continues to take place in Gaza City as Israel attacks
[[link removed]].
As a lawyer who has spent my life believing in the rule of law, this
makes me wonder: will Gaza’s destruction also bring with it the
death of international law?

From the very beginning, all one had to do was look at the words of
Israel’s leaders [[link removed]] to see
that the intent to commit genocide was there. Israeli ministers and
politicians promised
[[link removed]]
that Gaza would be flattened, placed under siege and starved. The
bombardments have been merciless and wide, targeting schools, homes
and hospitals. And the majority of Israel’s victims are children and
women
[[link removed]].
Maiming, starvation, lack of medical care and death have been
people’s daily experiences in Gaza. Nobody has acted to stop it.

 
Palestinian suffering has been livestreamed for the world to watch.
Israel has shown exactly what it is doing to trapped Palestinians.
Despite the killing of many brave journalists
[[link removed]],
others have continued to show the reality: the genocide has been
broadcast straight to your screen at home. Still, governments around
the world haven’t stopped it.

Palestinian groups documenting the atrocities – including the
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), of which I am director,
well as the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and Palestinian rights
organisation Al-Haq
[[link removed]]
– have been targeted
[[link removed]]by
Israeli airstrikes and sanctioned
[[link removed]]
by the US Treasury for documenting legal evidence of the crimes being
committed. Even the UN special rapporteur
[[link removed]]
Francesca Albanese and international criminal court (ICC) officials
– including chief prosecutor Karim Khan
[[link removed]]
– are being threatened and sanctioned for speaking out about their
findings. These findings match those in the PCHR’s newest report
[[link removed]]:
that the intent to commit genocide was there from October 2023
onwards, evidenced by the testimony of the very survivors and victims
that we should have been protecting.

 
The UN’s commission now joins the wide consensus that Palestinians
in Gaza have been experiencing genocide. This is a welcome
intervention. But it is also crucial to remember that the purpose of
the genocide convention
[[link removed]]
is in its full name: the convention
[[link removed]]
on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. The
philosophy for it was to be preventive _and_ punitive – which means
we are at a crossroads now. This genocide was not prevented, but it
can still be stopped. Will this be enough for people to act? Or will
the pounding of Gaza also turn the principles of international law
into rubble?

I speak not just as a Palestinian, but as a lawyer who spent the last
48 years practising, and believing in the sanctity of, law. I devoted
my life and expertise to this, because in my heart I felt there must
be something to protect, and that the law would serve the most
vulnerable people. But what we have been shown in governments’
inaction and complicity is an ugly reality. We may be looking at a new
world where international law is selective and politicised.

A genocide in our time with this level of mass killing, destruction,
pain and suffering shows how fragile the rule of law is. Arrest
warrants issued by the ICC has not prevented a genocide. Yet another
institution finding that Israel
[[link removed]] is committing genocide has
not stopped it. The law can only exist if it is enforced and applied
to all. The facts are there, the law is there. No one can claim they
didn’t know. As a society, we cannot allow international law to die
in Gaza by allowing Israel’s impunity.

As more institutions come to the same conclusions, I can only hope
that more pressure is put on governments who are still aiding and
providing arms to Israel. For these declarations and recognitions to
offer any tangible hope to the people of Gaza, they must come with
comprehensive action. The states who have been reluctant must follow
Spain in taking a clear position
[[link removed]]
by instigating an arms embargo. The cover and partnership offered by
the UK
[[link removed]]
and US to Israel for its genocide must stop.

Let this report not be just another piece of work that gets added to
the vault. Let there be a Palestine, and a people, left to recognise.
Let all these words, statements and declarations help remind us all of
what is at stake – not just for Gaza
[[link removed]], but for the world’s shared
values of the rule of law, democracy, human rights and dignity.
Please, let it spark the world to action and stop this genocide.

===

Raji Sourani is the director of the Palestinian Centre for Human
Rights, the coordinator of the Palestinian legal team at the
international criminal court (ICC) and a member of South Africa’s
legal team in the genocide case against Israel at the international
court of justice (ICJ).

* Gaza; Palestine; International Criminal Court; United Nations;
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed].]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]