Asia Pacific Report
The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has launched an open letter calling on the Aotearoa New Zealand government to take action on the future of the besieged enclave of Gaza.
The network is asking Foreign Minister Winston Peters to speak up for the people of New Zealand to at least condemn Israel’s use of humanitarian aid as a weapon of war.
It also wants the government to call for international humanitarian and human rights law to be applied.
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- The full PSNA letter
The PSNA says New Zealand has an internationally respected voice, and “we are asking the government to use this voice” for a lasting peace.
Kia ora Mr Peters,
The situation in Occupied Gaza has reached another crisis point.
Last Sunday [March 2], 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.
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.
Labour supports sanctions against Israel
Meanwhile, the opposition Labour Party said it would support Green Party co-leader Chloe Swarbrick’s member’s bill calling for sanctions against Israel for its illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories.
“The International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared the decades-long occupation illegal and called for Israel’s withdrawal, and for countries like New Zealand to take action,” Labour associate foreign affairs spokesperson Phil Twyford said in a statement.
“The New Zealand government recently voted at the UN General Assembly for a resolution calling for sanctions against Israel on this issue.
“Labour has been calling for stronger action from the government on Israel’s invasion of Gaza, including intervening in South Africa’s case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, creation of a special visa for family members of New Zealanders fleeing Gaza, and ending government procurement from companies operating illegally in the Occupied Territories.”
Twyford said New Zealand had long recognised Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem as illegal.
In 2016, the then National government co-sponsored a successful Security Council resolution that Israel’s settlements in the Occupied Territories were illegal.
