Getty imagesWriters such as Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan and Russell T Davies have put their names to an open letter – signed by more than 400 authors and organizations – calling for an immediate cease -fire in Gaza.
The letter, Also signed by Jeanette Winterson, Irvine Welsh, Kate Mosse and Elif Shafak, describes the Israeli military campaign on the territory as “genocidal”.
The writers urge people to join them to “put an end to our collective silence and inaction in the face of horror”.
Israel says he is working to destroy the Palestinian armed group Hamas and recover the hostages they have taken. He has highly refused allegations of genocidecomplaints also examined by the International Court of Justice.
Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the cross -border attack in Hamas on October 7, 2023, during which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
At least 54,056 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 3,901 in the last 10 weeks, according to the Hamas Ministry of Hamas in the territory.
Half a million people face famine in the coming months, according to an assessment of the classification of the integrated food security phase supported by the UN (IPC).
Responding to the accusation of genocide made by the AMNESTY International rights group in December, the Israeli foreign ministry described the group’s 295 -page report as “entirely false and based on lies”, while the Israeli army declared that the affirmations were “entirely baseless and do not take into account operational realities”.
Getty imagesThe authors’ letter is entitled The writers require an immediate Gaza cease-fire and organized by the writers Horatio Clare, Kapka Kassabova and Monique Roffey.
He notes that the amnesty and the monitoring of human rights, as well as the independent experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council, say, said, “clearly identified the genocide or acts of genocide in Gaza, promulgated by the Israeli defense forces and led by the government of Israel”.
The authors call for “immediate distribution without restriction of food and medical aid in Gaza by the UN”, and a cease-fire “which guarantees security and justice for all Palestinians, the release of all Israeli hostages, and the release of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners arbitrarily detained in Israeli prisons”.
The sanctions should be imposed, supports the letter, if the Israeli government does not act.
While taking this position, the authors also used the letter to “unreservedly affirm our absolute opposition and hate it from anti-Semitism, anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli prejudices”.
The letter continues: “We reject and disturb the attacks, hatred and violence – by writing, speech and action – against the Palestinian, Israelis and Jews in all form. We have joined the resistance of the Palestinian, Jewish and Israeli people to the genocidal policies of the current Israeli government.”
The organizers said that the letter had been made up of a contribution from a dozen British writers, based on another letter published in the French Liberation Journal this week, which was signed by 300 French -speaking writers.
It starts by quoting the poem that a star said yesterday by the Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada, who was killed by an Israeli air strike in 2023.
And he continues by saying that the Palestinians “are not the abstract victims of an abstract war …
“Too often, the words have been used to justify the unjustifiable, deny the undeniable, defend the indefensible. Too often, the good words – those who counted – were eradicated, as well as those who could have written them.”
The term genocide “is not a slogan,” said the letter. “It includes legal, political and legal responsibilities.”
The 1948 genocide convention, promulgated following the mass murder of the Jews in the Nazi holocaust, defines genocide as “acts committed with the intention of destroying, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.
