Gaza human rights – Asia Pacific Report

Palestine solidarity group lawyers refer NZ prime minister Luxon, 3 ministers to ICC over Gaza

APR editor — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 11:15:53 +0000

Asia Pacific Report.

In an unprecedented legal move in Aotearoa New Zealand, a national Palestine solidarity advocacy group has filed a referral against the prime minister, three other ministers in the coalition government and two business leaders, alleging complicity with Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza.

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has accused the six individuals of complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by “assisting Israel’s mass killing and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza”.

The PSNA movement has led 90 consecutive weeks of protest at multiple locations across New Zealand in the country’s biggest humn rights campaign since the war began in October 2023.

In a statement, PSNA co-chairs John Minto and Maher Nazzal said the referral “carefully outlines a case that these six individuals should be investigated” by the Office of the Prosecutor for their knowing contribution to Israel’s crimes in Gaza.

“The 103-page referral document was prepared by a legal team which has been working on the case for many months,” said Minto and Nazzal.

“It is legally robust and will provide the prosecutor of the ICC more than sufficient documentation to begin their investigation.”

The six people named in the referral documentation are Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters, Minister for Defence and Space Judith Collins, Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour, and businessmen Rocket Lab chief executive Sir Peter Beck and Rakon Limited chief executive Dr Sinan Altug.

Spy satellites
According to PSNA, Rocket Lab launches spy satellites from Māhia, which PSNA claims Israel uses go target civilians in Gaza, while Rakon exports military-grade crystal oscillators to the US “to be put in missiles which Israel can deploy in Gaza and elsewhere”.

“This is a grave step which we have not taken lightly,” Minto and Nazzal said.

PSNA co-chair John Minto … “This is a grave step which we have not taken lightly.” Image: PMC

“The government’s ongoing and meaningful support for Israel, despite its horrendous war crimes, is not only egregious to most New Zealanders, but is also criminal conduct under international law.”

The PSNA referral follows an open letter by one of the country’s largest environmental organisations two days ago that called on the government to impose sanctions on Israel amid mounting criticism in New Zealand over war crimes allegations against the state over its 20-month war.

Greenpeace’s sanctions open letter to NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Image: Greenpeace screeshot APR

Greenpeace Aotearoa’s executive director Dr Russel Norman, a former Green Party co-leader, said in an open letter addressed to Prime Minister Luxon and Foreign Minister Peters that he was expressing grave concerns about the “ongoing genocide in Gaza being carried out by Israeli forces, and the ongoing failure of the New Zealand government to impose meaningful sanctions on Israel.”

Norman cited a statement by the UN Human Rights Office last week that “at least 410 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military while trying to fetch from controversial new aid hubs in Gaza”.

The office said this was “a likely war crime”.

‘Killing field’
He also cited Ha’aretz, a respected Israeli newspaper, quoting an Israeli soldier describing the Israeli and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHC) aid hubs as a “killing field”.

PSNA co-chair Maher Nazzal . . . “This has brought shame on the whole country.” Image: APR

In March last year, Sydney law firm Birchgrove Legal referred a case to ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan consisting of 92 pages of documented evidence, alleging that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and several other high level local politicians were complicit in the Gaza genocide.

The case was lodged under article 15 of the Rome Statute and although Albanese claimed it had “no credibility”, two months later the ICC announced that it had agreed to investigate Albanese as part of its ongoing “Situation in the State of Palestine” investigation.

In January 2015, the Palestinian government lodged a claim with the ICC regarding war crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories since 13 June 2014.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, leading international scholars and the UN Special Committee to investigate Israel’s practices have all condemned Israel’s actions as genocide.

In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for the war crimes of starvation as a weapon and crimes against humanity.

‘Letter of demand’
The New Zealand referral to the ICC followed a “letter of demand” issued to the government last year actions that a “reasonable government” would take to prevent and punish the crime of genocide, and the actions a government should take to avoid criminal complicity with Israel.

The ICC referral document from PSNA against the New Zealand coalition government individuals. Image: PSNA screenshot APR

“For 20 months these political and business leaders have supported Israel to commit crimes which have shocked the human conscience,” Minto and Nazzal said.

“This has brought shame on the whole country.”

It is understood that this is the first time that New Zealand political or business leaders have been referred to the ICC for investigation.

There were no immediate responses. However, a growing number of such cases are being filed around the world.

In July 2024, the UN’s highest global court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion declaring that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Gaza and East Jerusalem, was illegal.

It called on Israel to halt all settlements and withdraw settlers from the territory. The court is also investigating Israel over a case brought by South Africa alleging genocide.

Eugene Doyle: Writing in the time of the Gaza genocide

APR editor — Mon, 02 Jun 2025 05:38:52 +0000

COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

I want to share a writer’s journey — of living and writing through the Genocide. Where I live and how I live could not be further from the horror playing out in Gaza and, increasingly, on the West Bank.

Yet, because my country provides military, intelligence and diplomatic support to Israel and the US, I feel compelled to answer the call to support Palestine by doing the one thing I know best: writing.

I live in a paradise that supports genocide
I am one of the blessed of the earth. I’m surrounded by similarly fortunate people. I live in a heart-stoppingly beautiful bay.

Even in winter I swim in the marine reserve across the road from our house. Seals, Orca, all sorts of fish, octopus, penguins and countless other marine life so often draw me from my desk towards the rocky shore. My home is on the Wild South Coast of Wellington. Every few days our local Whatsapp group fires a message, for example: “Big pod of dolphins heading into the bay!”

I live in Aotearoa New Zealand, a country that, in the main, is yawning its way through a genocide and this causes me daily frustration and pain. It drives me back to the keyboard.

I am surrounded by good friends and suffer no fears for my security. I am materially comfortable and well-fed. I love being a writer. Who could ask for more?

I write, on average, a 1200-word article per week. It’s a seven days a week task and most of my writing time is spent reading, scouring news sites from around the world, note-taking, fact-checking, fretting, talking to people and thinking about the story that will emerge, always so different from my starting concept.

I’m in regular contact with historians, ex-diplomats, geopolitical analysts, writers and activists from around the world and count myself fortunate to know these exceptional people.

This article is different, simpler; it is personal — one person’s experience of writing from the far periphery of the conflict.

I don’t want to live in a country that turns a blind or a sleep-laden eye to one of the great crimes against humanity. I have come to the hurtful realisation that I have a very different worldview from most people I know and from most people I thought I knew.

Fortunately, I have old friends who share in this struggle and I have made many new friends here in New Zealand and across the world who follow their own burning hearts and work every day to challenge the role our governments play in supporting Israel to destroy the lives of millions of innocent people. To me, these people — and above all the Palestinian people in their steadfast resistance — are the heroes who fuel my life.

Writing is fighting
Most of us have multiple demands on our time; three of my good writer friends are grappling with cancer, another lost his job for challenging the official line and now must work long hours in a menial day job to keep the family afloat. Despite these challenges they all head to the keyboard to continue the struggle. Writing is fighting.

There’s so little we can all do but, as Māori people say: “ahakoa he iti, he pounamu” – it may only be a little but every bit counts, every bit is as precious as jade.

That sentiment is how movements for change have been built – anti-Vietnam war, anti-nuclear, anti-Apartheid — all of them pro-humanity, all of them about standing with the victims not with the oppressors, nor on the sideline muttering platitudes and excuses. As another writer said: “Washing one’s hands of the struggle between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.” (Paolo Friere) Back to the keyboard.

My life until October 7th was more focussed on environmental issues, community organisation and water politics. I had ceased being “a writer” years ago.

One day in October 2023 I was in the kitchen, ranting about what was being done to the Palestinians and what was obviously about to be done to the Palestinians: genocide. My emotions were high because I had had a deeply unpleasant exchange with a good friend of mine on the golf course (yes, I play golf). He told me that the people of Gaza deserved to be collectively punished for the Hamas attack of October 7th.

I had angrily shot back at him, correctly but not diplomatically, that this put him shoulder-to-shoulder with the Nazis and all those who imposed collective punishment on civilian populations. My wife, to her credit, had heard enough: “Get upstairs and write an article! You have to start writing!”

It changed my life. She was right, of course. Impotent rage and parlour-room speeches achieve nothing. Writing is fighting.

’40 beheaded babies survived the Hamas attack’
My first article “40 Beheaded Babies Survived the Hamas Attack” was a warning drawn from history about narratives and what the Americans and Israelis were really softening the ground for. Since then I have had about 70 articles published, all in Australia and New Zealand, some in China, the USA, throughout Asia Pacific, Europe and on all sorts of email databases, including those sent out by the exemplary Ambassador Chas Freeman in the US and another by my good friend and human rights lawyer J V Whitbeck in Paris.

All my articles are on my own site solidarity.co.nz.

As with historians, part of a writer’s job is to spot patterns and recurrent themes in stories, to detect lies and expose deeper agendas in the official narratives. The mainstream media is surprisingly bad at this. Or chooses to be.

Just like the Incubator Babies story in Iraq, the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in Vietnam, reaching right back to the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana in 1898, propaganda is often used as a prelude to atrocities. The blizzard of lies after October 7th were designed to be-monster the Palestinians and prepare the ground for what would obviously follow.

The narrative of beheaded babies promoted by world leaders, including President Biden, was powerfully amplified by our mainstream media; journalists at the highest level of the trade spread the lies.

I have to tell you, it was frightening in October 2023 to challenge these narratives. Every day I pored through the Israeli news site Ha’aretz for updates. Eventually the narrative fell apart — but by then the damage was done. Thousands of real babies had been murdered by the Israelis.

Never before have so many of my fellow writers been killed
Following events in Palestine closely, it still comes as a shock when a journalist I have read, seen, heard is suddenly killed by the Israelis. This has happened several times. When it does I take a coffee and walk up the ridiculously steep track behind my house and sit high above the bay on a bench seat I built (badly).

That bench is my “top office” where I like to chew thoughts in my mind as I see the cold waves break on the brown rocks below. High up there I feel detached and better able to ask and answer the questions I need to process in my writing.

Why does our media pay little attention to the killing of so many fellow writers? Why don’t they call out the Israelis for having killed more journalists than any military machine in history? Why the silence around Israel’s “Where’s Daddy?” killing programme that has silenced so many Palestinian journalists and doctors by tracking their mobile phones and striking with a missile just when they arrive back home to their families? Why does “the world’s most moral army” commit such ugly crimes? Where’s the solidarity with our fellow journalists?

Is it because their skin is mainly dark? Is that why, according to Radio New Zealand’s own report on its Gaza coverage, New Zealanders have more in common with Israelis than we do with Palestinians? RNZ refers to this as our “proximity” to Israelis. They’re right, of course: by failing to shoulder our positive duty to act decisively against Israel and the US we show that we share values with people committing genocide.

Is this why stories about our own region — Kanaky New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands and so on, get so little coverage? I have heard many times the immense frustration of journalists I know who work on Pacific issues. The answer is simple: we have greater “proximity” to Benjamin Netanyahu than we do to the Polynesians or Melanesians in our own backyard. Really?

Such questions need answers. Back to the keyboard.

Solidarity
I try not to permit myself despair. It’s a privilege we shouldn’t allow ourselves while our government supports the genocide. Sometimes that’s hard.

There’s a photo I’ve seen of a Palestinian mother holding her daughter that haunts me. In traditional thobe, her head covered by her simple robe, she could easily be Mary, mother of Jesus. She stares straight at the camera. Her expression is hard to read. Shock? Disbelief? Wounded humanity? Blood flows from below her eyes and stains her cheek and chin. Her forehead is blackened, probably from an explosive blast. She holds her child, a girl of perhaps 10, also damaged and blackened from the Israeli attack. The child is asleep or unconscious; I can’t tell which. The mother holds her as lovingly, as poignantly, as Mary did to Jesus when he came down from the cross. La Pietà in Gaza.

Why do some of us care less about this pair? Where is our humanity that we can let this happen day after day until the last syllable of our sickening rhetoric that somehow we in the West are morally superior has been vomited out.

I’ll give the last word to another writer:

“Verily I say unto you, in as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz.

NZ’s Palestine Forum calls on Luxon to take ‘firm stand’ over Israeli atrocities with temporary ban on visitors

APR editor — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 08:55:35 +0000

Asia Pacific Report

A Palestinian advocacy group has called on NZ Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Foreign Minister Winston Peters to take a firm stand for international law and human rights by following the Maldives with a ban on visiting Israelis.

Maher Nazzal, chair of the Palestine Forum of New Zealand, said in an open letter sent to both NZ politicians that the “decisive decision” by the Maldives reflected a “growing international demand for accountability and justice”.

He said such a measure would serve as a “peaceful protest against the ongoing violence” with more than 51,000 people — mostly women and children — being killed and more than 116,000 wounded by Israel’s brutal 18-month war on Gaza.

Since Israel broke the ceasefire on March 18, at least 1630 people have been killed — including at least 500 children — and at least 4302 people have been wounded.

The open letter said:

“Dear Prime Minister Luxon and Minister Peters,

“I am writing to express deep concern over the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and to urge the New Zealand government to take a firm stand in support of international law and human rights.

Palestinian Forum of New Zealand chair Maher Nazzal at an Auckland pro-Palestinian rally . . . “New Zealand has a proud history of advocating for human rights and upholding international law.” Image: Asia Pacific Report

“The Maldives has recently announced a ban on Israeli passport holders entering their country, citing solidarity with the Palestinian people and condemnation of the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

“This decisive action reflects a growing international demand for accountability and justice.

“New Zealand has a proud history of advocating for human rights and upholding international law. In line with this tradition, I respectfully request that the New Zealand government consider implementing a temporary suspension on the entry of Israeli passport holders. Such a measure would serve as a peaceful protest against the ongoing violence and a call for an immediate ceasefire and the protection of civilian lives.

“I understand the complexities involved in international relations and the importance of maintaining diplomatic channels. However, taking a stand against actions that result in significant civilian casualties and potential violations of international law is imperative.

“I appreciate your attention to this matter and urge you to consider this request seriously. New Zealand’s voice can contribute meaningfully to the global call for peace and justice.”

Sincerely,
Maher Nazzal
Chair
Palestine Forum of New Zealand

JUST IN: Maldives President officially signs the law banning Israelis from entering the country. pic.twitter.com/rKRnlEw6WK

— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) April 15, 2025

The Middle East Eye reports that Maldives ban on Israelis from entering the country was a protest against Israel’s war on Gaza in “resolute solidarity” with the Palestinian people.

President Mohamed Muizzu signed the legislation after it was passed on Monday by the People’s Majlis, the Maldivian parliament.

Muizzu’s cabinet initially decided to ban all Israeli passport holders from the idyllic island nation in June 2024 until Israel stopped its attacks on Palestine, but progress on the legislation stalled.

A bill was presented in May 2024 in the Maldivian parliament by Meekail Ahmed Naseem, a lawmaker from the main opposition, the Maldivian Democratic Party, which sought to amend the country’s Immigration Act.

The cabinet then decided to change the country’s laws to ban Israeli passport holders, including dual citizens. After several amendments, it passed this week, more than 300 days later.

“The ratification reflects the government’s firm stance in response to the continuing atrocities and ongoing acts of genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people,” Muizzu’s office said in a statement.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that at least 1,613 Palestinians had been killed since 18 March, when a ceasefire collapsed, taking the overall death toll since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023 to 50,983.

The ban went into immediate effect.

“The Maldives reaffirms its resolute solidarity with the Palestinian cause,” the statement added.

Last year, in response to talk of a ban, Israel’s Foreign Ministry advised its citizens against travelling to the country.

The Maldives, a popular tourist destination, has a population of more than 525,000 and about 11,000 Israeli tourists visited there in 2023 before the Israeli war on Gaza began.