In the last few days 1606 people have signed an open
letter to Mr Peters which we have sent him this afternoon,
New Zealand time.
Open letter requesting government
action on the future of Gaza
Kia ora Mr
Peters,
The situation in Occupied Gaza has reached
another crisis point.
Last Sunday Israel announced it
was ending its January ceasefire agreement with Palestinian
groups resisting the occupation and was once more imposing a
total ban on humanitarian aid entering Gaza.
Israel
says this is because it wants to extend the first phase of
the ceasefire agreement rather than negotiate phase two
which would see the agreed withdrawal of Israeli troops from
Gaza. The renewed blockade on food, water, fuel and medical
supplies has been widely condemned as a breach of the
ceasefire agreement and the use of “starvation as a weapon
of war” by Palestinian groups, international aid
organisations and many governments. The United Nations
Secretary General António Guterres has called for
“humanitarian aid to flow back into Gaza immediately”.
Israel has refused this request.
Compounding the
crisis is US President Donald Trump’s recently declared
intention to permanently remove all the Palestinian people
of Gaza and send them to other countries such as Egypt and
Jordan so Gaza can be rebuilt as a US territory in the
Middle East – in his words “the riviera of the Middle
East”.
Israel has accepted this US proposal but
Palestinians and the vast majority of governments and civil
society groups around the world are appalled at the
scheme.
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To this point our government has not commented
on either Israel’s new blockade of humanitarian supplies
into Gaza or the US President’s plan for ethnic cleansing
of the Palestinian territory.
Back in December 2023,
when the government was commenting, the Prime Minister
stated “…Israel must respect international humanitarian
law. Civilians and civilian infrastructure must be
protected…Safe and unimpeded humanitarian access must be
increased and sustained.”
None of this has happened
in the more than 14 months since.
We are
asking our government to speak out once more on behalf of
the people of New Zealand to, at the very least, condemn
Israel’s use of humanitarian aid as a weapon of war and to
call for international humanitarian and human rights law to
be applied.
We believe the way forward
for peace and security for everyone who calls the Middle
East home is for all parties to follow international law and
United Nations resolutions so that a lasting peace can be
established based on justice and equal rights for everyone
in the region.
New Zealand has an internationally
respected voice which can make a strong contribution to this
end. We are asking the government to use this
voice.
Nga
mihi.
