UN Urged to Hold Israel Accountable for Horrifying War Crimes in Gaza

Interview with Kathy Kelly, lifelong nonviolence activist, board president of World Beyond War, conducted by Scott Harris

As 2024 comes to a close, the carnage inflicted by Israel on Palestinians living in Gaza is difficult to comprehend.  Over the past 14 months of the war that began after the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel that killed 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped 240 hostages, Israel’s airstrikes and ground assault has now killed 45,000 Palestinians, up to 70 percent women and children. Ten thousand more of the dead are believed to be buried under tons of rubble, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Haunting assessments from the United Nations and international aid agencies conclude that nearly 70 percent of Gaza’s housing, schools and basic infrastructure have been destroyed by Israeli bombing or demolition, with only 36 percent of primary health centers still functioning. Due to Israel’s blockade of humanitarian food deliveries and medical aid, both starvation and disease are now widespread among the 2.3 million Palestinian residents of Gaza.

Despite the International Court of Justice investigation into charges that Israel is engaged in genocide in Gaza and arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and a Hamas commander for war crimes, the slaughter in Gaza continues. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Kathy Kelly, lifelong nonviolence activist and board president of the group World Beyond War. Here she talks about the catastrophic situation in Gaza and what an international network of peace organizations, Global Solidarity for Peace in Palestine, is asking of the UN to stop the killing in Gaza.

KATHY KELLY: Scott, perhaps one of the most telling realities is that children are saying in majority numbers, “We don’t want to live any longer.” And they don’t expect to live. And, they’ve said, we don’t want to because it’s such a desperate, dismal situation in which they find themselves.

Scott, I had a chance to be on phone calls in October with Palestinians living in Gaza and in the West Bank, and I remember one man saying, “The Final Solution is being enacted against us now.” And, I also then remember being a teenager and thinking, how could anyone in Germany or Europe or the United States for that matter, have learned of the German plan for a Final Solution to eradicate European Jewry and not have wanted to take steps to prevent that?

But, here we are now, looking at what Palestinians are telling us is a Final Solution, and what we’re seeing is increased indifference nurtured by mainstream media on the part of elites and capitals all around the world. Instead of seeing a concerted determined resolve to say, “We must have an immediate permanent ceasefire.” So, I think the United Nations is where we must turn, but it’s been quite difficult for member states of the United Nations to go up against the most powerful groups within the Security Council to say this must stop.

SCOTT HARRIS: MM-hmm (affirmative). Well, Kathy, in your recent article titled, “When Will the UN General Assembly Suspend Israel?” you discuss a letter from the International Coalition called Global Solidarity for Peace and Palestine. What are the signers of this letter requesting from the United Nations in the General Assembly with regards to Israel’s violation of international law in human rights?

KATHY KELLY: Well, the General Assembly will be headed by the ambassador of Algeria to the United Nations, Mr. Amar Bendjama in January and he could call for hearings and bring in expert witnesses from Amnesty International, from Human Rights Watch, from Doctors Without Borders and make the case for suspending Israel, because Israel has itself flouted international law. I mean, it’s so telling that on his way out, the outgoing Israeli ambassador to the United Nations went to the podium to give his final talk and with him he was carrying a portable paper shredder and he shredded the United Nations charter in front of a kind of an appalled audience. And, when you look at the Negav desert and the Shimon Perez Nuclear Research Center and underneath those desert sands are possibly 200 to 400 thermonuclear weapons. And Israel never acknowledges that it possesses that nuclear weaponry.

Then you have the ways in which Israel has, because of its illegal occupation, flouted international law, particularly after the International Court of Justice ruled that the entire occupation is illegal. So member states have an obligation — not just an opportunity — an obligation to stop all trade with Israeli settlements. To stop any shipment of weapons to Israel, to definitely call on a shunning of the country of Israel from the General Assembly.

And I think that this could be done, but the United States would very likely retaliate in a very strong way against any country that would try to take these kinds of steps. And so people are afraid.

But we are seeing some differences. I mean, for instance, Ireland has spoken out very vociferously against Israel’s actions that have violated international law in Gaza, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. And so Israel closed its embassy in Dublin,and the Irish president and prime minister and others have said, “Well, you know, if you wanna know what we think is reprehensible, it’s the killing of children. It’s the constant attacks against UN sanctuaries, against UN workers in the region, against UNRWA (UN Relief and Workers Agency).

So I think we are beginning to see more of a readiness on the part of member states of the United Nations General Assembly to say the whole edifice of international law is going to be so horribly undermined. We’re seeing the de-evolution, the devolution of international law and we can’t afford this. We’re living in a time when ecological collapse threatens the entire planet. We more than ever need edifices of international law.

For more information, visit World Beyond War at worldbeyondwar.org.

Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Kathy Kelly (15:45) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the Related Links section of this page.

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