The United States and Fiji have filed separate declarations of intervention in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), alleging the country is committing genocide in Gaza.

While the US explicitly rejects the allegation that Israel is committing genocide, Fiji raises issues about how the 1948 Genocide Convention should be interpreted.

The 34-page Fiji declaration was filed on March 12 and is signed by Ambassador Ilaitia Tamata, Fiji’s Permanent Representative of Fiji to the United Nations and other international organisations in Geneva, reports The Fiji Times.

• READ MORE: Fiji files intervention in Gaza genocide case at ICJ
• Israel’s genocide in Gaza: Whatever happened to South Africa’s case at the ICJ?
• Palestine will continue to seek justice against Israel at ICC and ICJ, says The Hague ambassador
• More Gaza genocide lawsuit reports

In the declaration, Fiji said it was exercising its right under Article 63(2) of the ICJ Statute to intervene as a party to the Convention, arguing that the case raises important questions about how it should be interpreted.

The filing confirms that Fiji has appointed its Permanent Representative to Israel, Ambassador Filipo Tarakinikini, as agent for the proceedings.

The Fiji filing was made alongside separate interventions by Namibia and Hungary, according to a press release issued by the court on Friday, reports Middle East Eye.

All four states submitted declarations under Article 63 of the ICJ statute, which allows countries that are parties to a treaty under dispute to intervene in order to present their interpretation of that treaty.

Iceland, Netherlands also file
Earlier on Thursday, Iceland and the Netherlands also filed declarations under Article 63.

South Africa filed the case in December 2023, accusing Israel of breaching the Genocide Convention through its military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks of  October 7 that year.

Pretoria argues that Israel’s conduct — including mass killings, destruction of infrastructure and the imposition of conditions of life threatening the survival of Palestinians in Gaza — amounts to genocide.

Israel denies the accusation and claims its war is justified by considerations of self-defence.

The US submission on Thursday stands out among most interventions for directly defending Israel against the accusation brought by South Africa. Taking sides in a case is highly unconventional under Article 63 submissions.

“It’s very unusual for an intervening state (US) to use language like that,” explained Professor Gerhard Kemp, a scholar of international law.

“States normally stick to the legal issues, which can even be helpful for both sides. But terms like ‘false’ or ‘wrong’ don’t really move the needle,” he told Middle East Eye.

“They are probably aimed at a different audience.”

US argues genocide claim ‘false’
In its declaration, Washington argues that allegations that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza are “false” and urges the court to apply a strict legal threshold when determining genocidal intent.

It says, uncontroversially, that genocide can only be established where there is clear proof of specific intent to destroy a protected group.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza: Whatever happened to South Africa’s case at the ICJ?

That intent should only be inferred when it is the only reasonable explanation for the conduct in question, it says.

The submission argues that the ICJ must be fully convinced before determining an act is genocide, due to the exceptional gravity of the crime. It also says civilian casualties and destruction during armed conflict do not by themselves prove genocidal intent.

“The United States submits that the Court should maintain its standard for inferring intent. Lowering the standard risks broadening the application of the term ‘genocide’ such that it no longer carries its original weight and meaning, and invites attempts to misuse the Genocide Convention as a gateway for bringing extraneous disputes before the Court,” the US claimed.

Hungary and Fiji’s submissions similarly advance legal arguments that align closely with Israel’s position in the case.

Narrow interpretation
Hungary’s declaration calls for a narrow interpretation of genocide and emphasises that civilian casualties and destruction during armed conflict do not in themselves demonstrate genocidal intent.

Fiji’s intervention likewise urges the court to apply an extremely high evidentiary threshold for genocide, and cautions against relying heavily on reports by international organisations or non-governmental groups when assessing allegations.

By contrast, Namibia’s declaration focuses on a broader interpretation of the Genocide Convention and emphasises how genocidal intent may be inferred from patterns of conduct and cumulative evidence.

Namibia argues that acts such as the denial of humanitarian aid, repeated displacement and deprivation of basic necessities could fall within the Convention’s prohibition on deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of a protected group.

Its submission also stresses that genocide can be committed through omissions, including a refusal to allow or facilitate life-saving humanitarian assistance to civilians under a state’s control.

Third-state interventions
The new filings add to a rapidly expanding list of states seeking to intervene in the proceedings.

Since April 2024, similar interventions have been submitted by Colombia, Libya, Mexico, Palestine, Spain, Turkey, Chile, the Maldives, Bolivia, Ireland, Cuba, Belize, Brazil, the Comoros, Belgium and Paraguay in support of the South African argument.

Palestine and Belize have also sought to intervene under Article 62 of the court’s statute, which allows states to apply to participate in proceedings if they believe they have a legal interest that could be affected by the court’s decision.

Under Article 63, intervening states do not become parties to the dispute. Instead, they are permitted to present their interpretation of the treaty at issue — in this case the 1948 Genocide Convention.

The interpretation adopted by the court in its eventual judgment will also be binding on those states.

The case has become one of the most closely watched disputes ever heard by the ICJ and has drawn an unusually large number of third-state interventions, which have reached 22.

The court has already ordered Israel in legally binding provisional measures to take steps to prevent acts that could violate the Genocide Convention and to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Israel ignores court orders
Israel has repeatedly ignored the orders.

A final ruling on whether Israel has breached the Convention is expected in 2028. But it could take longer, depending on the length of hearings and the two parties’ adherence to deadlines.

On Thursday, Israel was scheduled to submit its counter-memorial, or arguments in response to South Africa’s accusations, after several deadline extensions by the court.

The court has yet to announce that Israel has filed its evidence, however.

During its devastating onslaught, Israel has so far killed more than 74,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them women and children. It has also destroyed most of the enclave’s homes, hospitals, schools and other infrastructure, rendering it largely uninhabitable for its 2.3 million civilians.

A UN commission of inquiry concluded last September that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza since 7 October 2023.

The UN report’s authors, including legal experts Navi Pillay and Chris Sidoti, told Middle East Eye that the report used evidence and a similar methodology in its analysis to that which will be used by the ICJ.

A peace advocate urged people in New Zealand today to get behind a “Stop Wars Aotearoa” campaign to oppose the illegal and unprovoked US-Israeli war on Iran and expand beyond solidarity with Palestine.

In the 127th week of protest against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and occupied West Bank, socialist trade union organiser Joe Carolan called on protesters to redouble their efforts.

Speaking in Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square, he praised a public meeting in Mt Eden this week that heralded the start of a rolling peace movement that echoed the efforts in a bid to halt the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq — “a war based on a lie” about non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

• READ MORE: US ‘hideouts’ in UAE ‘legitimate targets’ after Kharg Island attacks: IRGC
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• Other US-Israel War on Iran reports

Carolan drew comparisons between his native Ireland and the colonisation of New Zealand.

Apart from Christianity, the colonisers “needed another pretext to civilise great unwashed”. Militarism.

He paid tribute to “anyone who ran the gauntlet outside the public meeting on Wednesday that we held at the Mt Eden War Memorial Hall where we remember the price of wars — in fact working class lives — both here and abroad”.

“And we should remember the dead and not go to war again — that’s the whole point of a war memorial hall.

‘Ran the gauntlet’
“But those of us who ran the gauntlet of the people waving Israeli flags and lecturing us about human rights, waving the American flags and lecturing us about women’s rights when the place is run by rapists and pedophiles obviously – know it’s Operation Epstein Fury now.

“An operation so [US President Donald] Trump and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu can both avoid what is coming to them which is a long time in prison until they die.”

Netanyahu is wanted on an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and Israel is on trial for genocide with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a case brought by South Africa and 14 other countries.

“Many people didn’t show shock at all in the West, and condemn the murder of 170 school students — young women — that you guys purport that you want to liberate.

“You killed them. You liberated them from their lives and their blood is on the hands of those [US and Israeli] forces.

“And also Iran is a gigantic country of 90 to 100 million people. Of course, it’s not a monolithic country, there are people with many different views.

“I’ll give you two words in Irish, you might have heard them before, about who should determine Iran’s future, and that’s Sinn Féin — ‘Ourselves Alone’.

‘Run own revolution’
“Nobody has the right to determine the future of any nation, except the people who live in that nation themselves, including whether how they run their own revolution or how they run their own democracy.”

Sinn Féin is also an Irish republican political party, founded in 1905, striving for self-determination and ending British rule in Northern Ireland.

Tomorrow Te Komititanga Square is hosting an Irish cultural festival to mark the lead up to St Patrick’s Day on March 17.

Tayyaba Khan of Palestine Solidarity Network (PSNA) spoke about the mosque massacre in Christchurch on 15 March 2019 when a lone Australian gunman murdered 51 Muslims at Friday prayers in New Zealand’s worst case of terrorism. The gunman is serving a life sentence for his crimes.

Khan also remembered the survivors and their struggle to rebuild their lives.

Other speakers today highlighted how the rally was reminding the New Zealand government and the public that many in the country were totally opposed to the continuing genocide in Palestine.

“There is no ceasefire in Gaza and the US and Israeli Zionists continue to drive the Palestinian people out of their ancestral homes and land to colonise the region,” said a protest flyer.

“To everyone in the square today we invite you to join with us and the many peoples around the world in condemning the unlawful US and Israeli military assault on Iran.”

According to the Al Jazeera death toll live tracker, 1444 people have been killed in Iran, at least 15 in Israel, 11 US soldiers and 19 dead in Gulf states.

“We stand in solidarity with all the people of Iran and across the Middle East, particularly Palestine, including Gaza and Lebanon,” said rally MC Leeann Wahanui-Peters.

Al-Quds Day marked
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people around the world marked Al-Quds Day yesterday. This is marked annually to show support for Palestine and oppose the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.

Al-Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem.

Reporting from the huge Tehran rally, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi said Iranians hoped to both show their support for Palestinians and express “defiance and resilience” amid the US-Israeli attacks.

“They think that by killing us, we will be afraid, that by dropping bombs on our heads, we will be afraid. No, we stand by our country,” a woman demonstrator told Al Jazeera.

Another protester said Iranians had shown in their confrontation with the US and Israel that “the wall of oppression can be broken”.

“Today, with their presence in different squares, the people showed that it is possible to overcome injustice and break the wall of oppression,” he told Al Jazeera.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian was also seen at the rally in the Iranian capital — shaking hands with people and posing for selfies — along with other Iranian officials, including Ali Larijani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

The issue of Australians — and New Zealanders as well — serving in the Israeli military has sparked growing debate as the genocidal war crimes in Gaza mount.

Most of those involved are believed to be dual Israeli-Australian citizens, and under current Australian law, it is not automatically illegal to join a recognised foreign army, reports OnePath Network.

However, critics say the lack of transparency, including unclear numbers, roles, and oversight, is troubling, especially while international courts are examining serious allegations linked to the conflict.

• READ MORE: Thousands of Western nationals fought Israel’s war on Gaza: What to know
• Other Gaza genocide reports

Proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where Israel is on trial for  genocide in a case brought by South Africa, and International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu and other officials have intensified questions about Australia’s responsibility to monitor its citizens abroad.

According to an Al Jazeera report, more than 50,000 Western nationals — most of them holding US or European Union passports — have joined the Israeli military in its genocidal war that has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians.

The largest number is from the United States — 12,350 dual nationality US-Israel citizens and 1207 multiple nationalities — followed by 6127 French dual national citizens and 337 multiple nationalities, according to data obtained by the Israeli NGO Hatzlacha through Israel’s Freedom of Information Law.

Australia is well down the list with 502 dual nationality soldiers and 119 multiple nationality citizens. New Zealand is 56th with 39 and 11.

Accountability major concern
A major concern being raised is accountability: if any Australians serving in Gaza were involved in alleged war crimes, would they actually be investigated?

Legal experts say Australia has “universal jurisdiction” laws, meaning citizens can theoretically be prosecuted for serious crimes committed overseas, but so far, there has been little public evidence of active investigations.

Critics argue this creates a perception of double standards.

The debate ultimately centres on whether Australia is willing to apply the same scrutiny to its own nationals in foreign conflicts, ensuring that military service abroad does not place individuals beyond the reach of the law.

Similar questions apply to New Zealand.

COMMENTARY: By Chris Sidoti

It’s not too late for Anthony Albanese to withdraw the invitation to the Israeli President, Isaac Herzog. It should be withdrawn for three reasons.

The first is institutional: The President of Israel is a constitutional role that is head of state but not part of the political or military chain of command. The office is similar to that of Australia’s Governor-General, though with somewhat more power.

As head of state, the president embodies and represents the state of Israel.

• READ MORE: Pro-Palestinian group vows protests in 24 cities against Israeli president’s Australia visit
• Jonathan Cook: The criminal elite exposed in the Epstein files are burying the truth about Gaza
• Other Gaza genocide reports

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has found that Israel unlawfully occupies the Palestinian territories, has unlawfully purported to annex parts of the Palestinian territories and unlawfully plants, encourages and maintains unlawful settlements in Palestinian territories.

The court is also trying a case in which Israel is accused of genocide.

The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister and former Defence Minister, citing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The same court is investigating other senior Israeli military and political leaders on similar charges.

The UN Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian territory has found evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal intent by Israeli leaders and recommended their prosecution. Israel is a rogue state whose head of state, its supreme representative, should not be permitted to visit Australia.

The second reason is about Herzog himself: The Commission of Inquiry has found that Herzog has incited genocide. Herzog made the statement that all Palestinians, “an entire nation”, are responsible for the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023.

The commission found that, because as president he is not part of the political or military chain of command, he was not responsible for war crimes or crimes against humanity. But the crime of incitement to genocide stands outside the chain of command. It can be committed by any individual. The commission recommended that he be investigated and prosecuted by the International Criminal Court.

Herzog denies this and has qualified his statement, saying “there are many, many innocent Palestinians who don’t agree” with the actions of Hamas. But the UN commission said it viewed that as an effort “to deflect responsibility for the initial statement”.

He has been a vocal head of state and his words have been taken and repeated by Israeli soldiers. Someone who incites genocide does not satisfy the good character test for entering Australia. On the contrary, a person who incites genocide should be arrested on arrival and tried under Australian law and international law for the crime.

Traditionally, a head of state has a special immunity when visiting another country. However, there is now strong legal argument that this immunity does not apply in relation to atrocity crimes, namely war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Australia should not apply immunity in relation to these crimes.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry has previously rejected the commission’s report as “distorted and false”, and Herzog has said his comments have been taken out of context, noting he also said Israeli soldiers would follow international law.

The third reason for withdrawing the invitation relates to us, Australia, and our current situation: The Hanukah massacre on 14 December 2025 has shaken us all. It was an atrocity. Immediately political leaders across the spectrum expressed concerns for “social cohesion”. They said steps were needed to restore social cohesion and called for national unity at a time of crisis.

Eventually a royal commission was appointed for this purpose. And yet it’s hard to imagine a single event at this point in time more likely to harden national division and undermine social cohesion than a visit by the Israeli president. It could be the most divisive state visit to Australia since that of US president Lyndon B Johnson in October 1966 when the Vietnam war was at its height and Australian soldiers were being killed.

What was the Prime Minister thinking when he invited Herzog? In the days after the massacre, he no doubt thought inviting Herzog was a good way to express support for the traumatised Jewish community.

But Herzog is a political leader, not a religious leader. He is divisive in Israel and his visit could be divisive in Australia. If the Prime Minister wanted to support the Jewish community, he would have done better to invite a respected Jewish religious leader.

For reasons of law, ethics and social cohesion, this divisive political visit should be stopped.

The prime minister is widely acclaimed for his willingness to recognise mistakes and change course before it’s too late. He should recognise that he made a terrible mistake, in the emotional, traumatic days after the massacre, in inviting Herzog to visit.

It’s not too late to correct the mistake.

Chris Sidoti is Australian and a Commissioner on the UN Human Rights Council’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. Republished from The Guardian on 5 February 2026 and from Pearls and Irritations today with permission from the editor.

If you want to understand what’s going on in Iran, abandon what the Persians invented centuries ago: Manichaeism. We use the term today to denote political framing which is simplistic, black-and-white, two-dimensional — a world of Angels (us) and Demons (them).

This article recognises multiple perspectives, including those of an activist associated with the anti-government Woman Life Freedom movement whom I interviewed this week.

First, however, let us look at the geopolitical manoeuvres at work and “The Invisible Hand of Israel”.

• READ MORE: Gulf countries gear up diplomacy to stave off US-Iran escalation
• Israel tries to drag US into ‘fighting wars on its behalf,’ says Iran’s foreign minister
• Other Iran reports

The invisible hand of Israel
Former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told Israeli army radio this week that Israel must be ready to act when the Iranian “regime” is ready to fall.

“At this moment, when what matters most is the mass action on the ground, we need to stay in the background and steer things with an invisible hand,” said Gallant, who is the subject of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant.

Former CIA director and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted this week: “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them.”

The Iranian regime is in trouble. Bringing in mercenaries is its last best hope.

Riots in dozens of cities and the Basij under siege — Mashed, Tehran, Zahedan. Next stop: Baluchistan.

47 years of this regime; POTUS 47. Coincidence?

Happy New Year to every Iranian in the…

— Mike Pompeo (@mikepompeo) January 2, 2026

I don’t believe this was a case of letting the cat out of the bag; I think this is both true and a form of psy-ops (psychological warfare), trying to unnerve the Iranian government and encourage the kind of harsh crackdown that regimes resort to when they feel cornered.

MI6, CIA and Mossad are active in Iran, much to the frustration of many of the large numbers of anti-government protesters determined to end the rule of the clerics.

According to Israeli and Western sources, tens of thousands of Starlink terminals were smuggled into Iran to bypass any internet shutdown. Yet the government — apparently using sophisticated Chinese “kill switches” — were able to disable most of them, thus decoupling people within Iran from external coordinators.

Trump: ‘Help is on the way’
“Help is on the way,” Trump said menacingly on January 12.  How did that kind of “help” go for Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan or so many other countries going back to the Guatemalan Silent Genocide or the Vietnam War?

American “help” resulted in the overthrow of the democratically-elected Mossadegh government and the installation of authoritarian rule under Shah Pahlavi in 1953. The West got their hands on the oil.

This time if they cannot get regime change they will be happy with regime destruction, civil war and the end of the multi-century project for a unified and sovereign Iranian state. So far, things have not gone to plan.

Long-standing Israeli security analyst Ehud Ya’ari told Israeli Channel 12 this week that the Iranian government remained firmly in control and that there was no evidence of momentum in the protests.

“I want to say things that disappoint not only the viewers, but also me,” he said. “At the moment, we do not see a continued expansion of the uprising.

“It is not taking on new and larger dimensions, as it did in 1978–1979 before Khomeini returned to Tehran.”

This is inconvenient if the West indeed plans to launch a war.  The first Gulf War was partially sold on the killing of imaginary Incubator Babies, the Second Iraq War was sold on imaginary Weapons of Mass Destruction, the genocide in Gaza was launched amid lurid tales of imaginary Beheaded Babies.

War propaganda peddled by our mainstream media demands worthy victims.

Western contempt for international law could get a lot of people killed

As shown in Palestine and in Iran, the West tends to have a spitting contempt for international law if it is their team that tramples on it. Two cornerstones we should never forget are:

Article 2(4) of the UN Charter – Prohibition of Force: All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.

And, yes, that does include powerful white countries. And yes, that does include Russia.

Secondly, we should never forget the 1965 UN Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in Domestic Affairs.

Back in the 1980s the Reagan Administration secretly sold weapons to its enemy Iran to secretly fund Nicaraguan Contra death squads. In the 1984 Nicaragua Case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), international law was clarified by reaffirming that the principle of non-intervention “involves the right of every sovereign State to conduct its affairs without outside interference”.

Alastair Crooke, a former high-ranking member of Britain’s MI6, an expert on Islamist revolution, says Mujahedeen-e-Khalq fighters trained by the CIA in Albania, along with Kurdish fighters trained by the US in Syria, infiltrated Iran recently and played an important role in the violence.

“We’ve had demonstrations periodically in Iran but these were much more violent.” He suggests the ploy was to provoke retaliatory regime violence which could act as an accelerant to further popular escalation.

Some important truths about what is happening in Iran
There is a large anti-government portion of the population which has long-standing and genuine grievances.  I know and admire a few of them. There have also been equally large pro-government protests, largely unreported in the Western media.

Foremost among the anti-government protesters are women and, for that reason, I interviewed Aida Tavassoli, an Iranian women’s rights activist with the Woman Life Freedom movement.

“I think the people of Iran are just so fed up right now,” she told me. “I’ve always said Iran is like a pressure cooker. Each uprising is like you put more steam in the pressure cooker. Eventually it will explode.”

Aida became active in advocacy for women’s rights in Iran in 2022 when Jina Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, died in a Tehran hospital after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly improper hijab wearing. Her death sparked major protests inside Iran and around the world.

The circumstances of her death are, typically, contested.

“The whole world basically erupted into protests over the lack of women’s rights in Iran,” Tavassoli says. “The entire legislation of Iranian law is against women; they treat us as second-class citizens. We have basically no right to divorce, to the custody of children, to say no to child marriage. There’s a lot of honour killings in Iran, which we think are perpetuated by these discriminatory laws.”

This time around the most prominent anti-government groups rally around Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed Shah, who lives in the US, is endorsed by Israel, the US and powerful parts of the Iranian diaspora. According to Iran watchers I follow, his popularity within Iran is limited.

Pahlavi is in direct contact with Trump.  He publicly supported the American bombing of his own country last year.  He has expressed a desire to be in Tehran sooner rather than later.

“We will soon be by your side.” he tweeted to protesters, urging them to stay on the streets.

Images of rallies around the Western world in support of the anti-government action inside Iran typically show three flags prominent in the protests – the Lion and Sun flag of the Pahlavi regime, the Israeli flag, and the US flag.  This alliance between the monarchists, the Israelis and the Americans is concerning for many Iranians, including anti-government people like Aida Tavassoli.

“It almost feels like Reza Pahlavi and his dear friends — the Israelis and Americans — are stealing our revolution,” Tavassoli says. She emphasises any change should come from civil society inside Iran not external actors.

London-based Middle East Eye, with reporters on the ground, says “Iranian protesters reject US and Israeli interference”.

MEE quotes one of the protesters, Sara: “We want regime change, but we do not want our country to be destroyed. And given Israel’s record, it would not be surprising if they tried to exploit this situation.”

Not in any way discounting the validity and determination of many anti-government protesters, the events of the past month show all the tell-tale signs of a US “colour revolution”.

The Islamic Republic is under the kind of pressure that the West has become adept at applying.

The US reneged on the JCPOA nuclear agreement in 2018. Subsequent sanctions and further isolation are powerful. US-Israeli assassinations and missile attacks triggered the 12-day War last year.

Some believe the sharp decline in the Iranian currency this month was part of an orchestrated destabilization campaign. Combine this with corruption and what is widely assessed as incompetent economic management and you have all the ingredients for serious discontent.

Ordinary Iranians are suffering and frustrated; many are turning against the government.

The US is moving more attack assets into the region; Israel apparently wants to try its luck again. Here we go, yet again.

Professor Glenn Diesen: “The result is always the same — from the Arab Spring onward. The country which was to be liberated is instead destroyed. So we’ve all seen this movie before.”

Government incapable of reform?
Protesters make the valid point that the Iranian government has shown itself incapable of the kind of reform that would recognise the pluralistic nature of Iranian society. Whether it is capable of reform is a moot point but all regimes crack down on dissent in the face of serious external threats and that is why I believe the US-Israel-EU approach is disastrous and counterproductive.

Change must come from within and not be imposed by powerful hostile countries — not least by ones actively pursuing genocide in Palestine.

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, and he contributes to Asia Pacific Report. He hosts the public policy platform solidarity.co.nz

Israelis are determined to erase the evidence of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, through the use of paid and instructed propagandists to reshape the historical record.

Zionists have also taken over social media platforms. Those who are critical of Israel are being censored or arrested.

From YouTube to X, Wikipedia, and TikTok, Zionists are capturing all means of communication to erase the evidence of its genocide, reshape the historical record, and censor those critical of it.

• READ MORE: Why Israel’s $150 million ‘public diplomacy’ budget has failed so abysmally
• Other Israeli hasbara reports

Meanwhile, the Israel Lobby exercises its power through intimidation, paying influencers to endorse it, and arresting dissenters whom they frame as terrorists.

Last December, Israel announced it was boosting its Foreign Affairs Ministry “hasbara” (propaganda) budget by an extra US$150 million.

Back in August, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted to reporters that Tel Aviv was losing to “propaganda” war.

“I think that we’ve not been winning [the propaganda war], to put it mildly … There are vast forces arrayed against us,” he stated at the time, blaming the algorithms for this defeat.

Dismantling free speech
Since then, Israel has been working to dismantle free speech and censor everything critical of it, across social media, as part of an all-encompassing crackdown.

This press conference was no accident; instead, it was part of a much larger scheme that began in July with a targeted campaign aimed at brainwashing right-wing conservatives in the West.

The propaganda plan was hatched in three parts: One being Netanyahu going on a number of right-wing podcasts; another being a social media censorship campaign, along with the financing of propaganda trips to Israel for right-wing influencers.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s appearance on the Nelk Boys podcast was his first stop in his attempt to revive right-wing support for him personally, yet it received enormous backlash at the time.

The podcasters were widely condemned for both “normalising” and asking no critical questions of the Prime Minister, who currently has an International Criminal Court (ICC) war crimes warrant out for his arrest.

The Israeli Prime Minister then went on a round of coordinated interviews across the American corporate media, as a range of other right-wing podcasters hosted him. The difference between the corporate media and the podcasters who hosted him was that the podcasters were even less critical and actively worked to bolster his image.

These disingenuous podcast hosts even attempted to frame themselves as defying cancel culture, being edgy and going against the mainstream, despite the fact that they were simply doing a worse job than that of the corporate media, battling nothing more than their own followings.

Erica Mindel – censorship Tsar
Meanwhile, in the background, TikTok hired Erica Mindel, an ex-Israeli soldier and ex-ADL employee who openly bragged of her loyalty to Israel, as its new “Hate Speech” censorship Tsar.

A move that appeared to have gone relatively unnoticed, but began to shape what was deemed acceptable discourse on the platform.

As this was in the works, the Israeli foreign ministry had already funded trips for 16 right-wing influencers to travel to Israel on closely coordinated propaganda trips. Their goal was to bring 550 such influencers on fully financed tours by the end of the year, which later included figures like Tommy Robinson and even former rapper Azealia Banks.

Upon visiting the White House in October, Benjamin Netanyahu attended a meeting with right-wing influencers and openly discussed ideas to capture social media platforms.

At this point, the agenda to kill content critical of Israel was already underway, as the TikTok app that the Israel Lobby sought to ban just a year prior fell into the hands of pro-Israel billionaires.

The world’s second-richest man and top donor to the Israeli military, Larry Ellison, is a key figure in this picture, as his company, Oracle, is poised to take over TikTok. The move was recently praised by The Times of Israel as “raising hopes for tougher anti-Semitism rules”.

Meanwhile, Ellison was busy buying up CBS News and installing the completely inexperienced, vehemently pro-Israel journalist, Bari Weiss, as the channel’s top executive.

Inexperienced for role
Weiss, whose claim to fame was being a temporary opinion piece writer at The New York Times before leaving and attempting to carve out a career as a right-wing commentator and, later, news outlet owner, is clearly inexperienced for taking on her current role.

Ellison just so happens to be a major stakeholder in Elon Musk’s Tesla and X.

In early October, YouTube also decided to quietly delete at least 700 videos from the platform that documented Israeli human rights violations, along with the accounts of three prominent Palestinian human rights groups: Al-Haq, Al-Mezan Center, and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.

The Intercept published an article explaining the move as a “capitulation” to President Donald Trump’s recent sanctions, enacted to shield Israel from accountability for its copiously documented war crimes.

Then there is Wikipedia co-founder, Jimmy Wales, who came out against the website’s page covering the Gaza Genocide, asserting that it “needs immediate attention”.

“At present, the lead and overall presentation state, in Wikipedia’s voice, that Israel is committing genocide, although that claim is highly contested,” Wales stated, claiming it violates the platform’s “neutral” point of view.

At present, every major human rights organisation, including Israel’s own B’Tselem, all the top legal organisations relevant to the issue, the United Nations, and the most representative body of genocide scholars, all agree that Israel is committing genocide.

ICJ’s “plausible genocide’
In fact, the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s ruling on the matter considers it a plausible genocide. The only ones disputing this fact are the Israelis themselves, ideologically committed and/or paid Zionist propagandists, in addition to Israeli allies who are also implicated in the crime of all crimes.

Objective truth is, however, not relevant to any of these bad-faith actors. This is because Israel and its powerful lobbying arms are actively pursuing a total crackdown on criticism of Israeli war crimes.

On X (Twitter), a new censorship warning has been placed over all images and videos from Gaza that show Israeli war crimes, also.

What is currently happening is a widespread attempt to wipe content from the internet, erase the truth, ban, deport, and arrest those critical of Israel. All this as the Israel Lobby brings social media and corporate media under its direct control, using the excuse of “anti-Semitism” and “terrorism” to do so.

Israel’s censorship crackdown, which the Trump administration is working alongside to complete, is by far the worst iteration of cancel culture yet.

The ongoing crackdown on academic freedom, for example, in order to silence criticism of Israel, is by far the most severe in US history.

Meanwhile, the ADL has just set up a “Mamdani monitor” to track the democratically elected incoming New York City mayor.

New Zealand’s Space Minister Judith Collins was warned just two months into Israel’s war on Gaza that new BlackSky satellites being launched from NZ could be used by that country’s military, reports Television New Zealand’s 1News.

According to a network news item on Friday, government documents showed officials had recommended the launches go ahead in spite of risks, saying there were no restrictions on trade with Israel.

Minister Collins gave the green light and RocketLab began launching the the Gen-3 BlackSky satellites from Mahia Peninsula earlier this year.

• READ MORE: Arrests as protesters target Christchurch aerospace summit
• Other RocketLab reports

In the documents, obtained by 1News political reporter Benedict Collins under the Official Information Act, Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment officials said while there were risks, the positives outweighed the negatives.

The officials’ advice on the satellite launches stated: “While it poses risks, there is a net good associated with commercially available remote sensing due to the wide range of applications,” 1News said.

One risk they identified related to Israel, but they said there were mitigating factors.

“There are no United Nations Security Council sanctions on Israel, and New Zealand does not implement autonomous sanctions outside the context of the conflict in Ukraine,” they advised the minister.

“There are also no policy restrictions on New Zealand’s trading relationship with Israel.”

World court warnings
However, over the two years of war on Gaza since 7 October 2023, several nonbinding legal opinions by the world’s highest court and UN agencies have warned Israel about its illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and also warned countries and companies about complicity with the pariah Zionist state.

In the latest ruling this week, the International Court of Justice said Israel was obliged to ease the passage of aid into Gaza, stressing it had to provide Palestinians with “basic needs” essential to survival.

The wide-ranging ICJ ruling came as aid groups were scrambling to scale up much-needed humanitarian assistance into Gaza, seizing upon a fragile ceasefire agreed earlier this month.

ICJ judges are also weighing accusations, brought by South Africa, that Israel has broken the 1948 UN Genocide Convention with its actions in Gaza.

Another court in The Hague, the International Criminal Court (ICC), has issued arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

According to 1News, the NZ documents also show that when MBIE officials recommended the application be approved they were aware experts at the UN were warning a possible genocide could unfold in Gaza and that schools and hospitals were being bombed.

‘Appalling’ decision
The officials’ advice came in December 2023, two months after the Hamas attacks on Israel which left 1200 people dead. Israel in response launched a retaliatory offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 68,000 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

Minister Collins said this week the decision had been the right one.

“We don’t have sanctions on Israel, we’re not at war with Israel, Israel is not our enemy,” she said.

But Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said it was an “appalling” decision that could fuel human rights abuses, reports 1News.

Officials at New Zealand’s space agency declined to be interviewed by 1News about Blacksky and RocketLab did not respond to a request for an interview with its founder Sir Peter Beck.

United States top diplomat Marco Rubio says the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) “is not going to play any role” in aid delivery in Gaza, reports Al Jazeera.

He also rejected the possibility of Hamas being involved in any future governance of the besieged enclave.

Speaking during a news conference while on a visit to Israel yesterday, the US Secretary of State claimed UNRWA had become “a subsidiary of Hamas”, echoing an Israeli government line that has been discredited by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

• READ MORE: Fiji’s stance on Israel and new embassy stirs revived condemnation
• Cole Martin: The Gaza ceasefire isn’t the end – what six months in Palestine showed me
• Other Gaza genocide reports

In response, UNRWA insisted that its presence “remains vital to meeting urgent humanitarian needs” across the bombarded and starved enclave, where a deadly Israeli offensive has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians in two years.

In a statement posted on X, the agency also highlighted that the ICJ had recognised that “no organisation can replace the UNRWA’s role in supporting the people of Gaza”.

Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, also dismissed Rubio’s characterisation.

“You’ve already heard us talk about how UNRWA is not linked to Hamas,” he told reporters at the UN. “UNRWA is the backbone of our humanitarian operations in Gaza.”

Israel banned the agency from operating after accusing some of its staff of taking part in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack without providing evidence.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh said the proclamation by Rubio that UNRWA was a Hamas “subsidiary” was “quite shocking” and “devastating” for UNRWA and all who were involved in Gaza.

UNRWA exonerated by ICJ
UNRWA was not only exonerated by the ICJ and two separate commissions of inquiry, but also had the largest, most extensive aid mechanism in Gaza, Odeh said.

“It has thousands of employees, it has the data to distribute aid to Palestinians with dignity and in an orderly fashion,” she said.

“Nobody has that kind of infrastructure and history in Gaza.”

PRESS RELEASE: The #ICJ delivers its Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of Israel in relation to the Presence and Activities of the United Nations, Other International Organizations and Third States in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory https://t.co/uMXJBTcJq6 pic.twitter.com/YuTGwDzPwP

— CIJ_ICJ (@CIJ_ICJ) October 22, 2025

Despite a US-mediated ceasefire that took effect earlier this month, Israel has continued launching attacks across Gaza. At least two people were killed in shelling east of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza yesterday, a source at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital told Al Jazeera Arabic.

Israel has also kept the Rafah crossing near Egypt sealed, blocking large-scale aid deliveries that were stipulated in the truce agreement.

In his remarks on Friday, Rubio voiced hope of soon putting together an international security force to police the ceasefire in Gaza and said Israel, which opposes including Turkiye, could veto participants.

In Suva, The Fiji Times reports that Israel says Fiji’s “neutral and highly skilled military” could play a valuable role in future peacekeeping efforts once negotiations on Gaza’s next phase were complete.

The indication came as Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel said discussions between Israel, the United States and Arab nations would determine the structure and participants of any peacekeeping arrangement.

“I have to say that we do trust the Fijian forces,” Haskel said during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka before she left for her controversial visit to New Zealand.

Fiji opening an embassy in Jerusalem last month in defiance of United Nations resolutions on Occupied Palestine and hosting a visit by a senior Israeli minister from the paraiah state this week has revived condemnation by Pacific human rights groups and Palestinian advocates.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel visited the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and Fiji — where she welcomed a possible “peacekeeping” role — in a week-long Pacific friendship mission.

She also faced controversy in New Zealand over the trip.

• READ MORE: PSNA slams Israeli politician over ‘sneaking into NZ’ during Pacific friendship trip
• “Not in our names” – NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji on Palestine
• Israel signals possible peacekeeping role in Gaza
• Netanyahu praises Papua New Guinea with ‘deep gratitude’ for backing Israel
• Israel continues deadly Gaza truce breaches as US seeks to strengthen deal
• Other reports on Israel’s Pacific support

Both Fiji and Papua New Guinea have opened controversial embassies in Jerusalem, recognised as the capital of Palestine when statehood is granted.

The NGO Coalition on Human Rights (NGOCHR) in Fiji has condemned Fiji’s coalition government for “callously ignoring the unfolding famine and mass starvation in Gaza”, saying it was being “deliberately orchestrated” by Israel in a statement.

The statement was issued before the opening of the embassy and the declaration of a Gaza ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump and three mediating Middle East countries.

While Israel has violated the fragile ceasefire several times in the past two weeks, killing at least 100 Palestinians, the International Court of Justice has made a nonbinding ruling that Israel must support UN relief efforts in Gaza, including those conducted by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Embassy entourage
The NGOCHR statement by chair Shamima Ali, dated September 9, criticised widespread reports in Fiji media that Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka would take “an entourage of 17 government officials and spouses” to officially establish the residential Fijian embassy.

“The coalition government appears to be callously ignoring the unfolding famine and mass starvation in Gaza that is being deliberately orchestrated by the state of Israel,” she said.

“This very same Fiji government previously defended the destruction, killing, and maiming of scores of thousands of innocent civilians — 70 percent of them women and children — by Israel at the International Court of Justice [in an earlier and ongoing case on genocide].”

Shamima Ali highlighted the visit in August by two World Elders — Mary Robinson (former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights) and Helen Clark (former Prime Minister of Aotearoa New Zealand and former Head of UNDP) — to the Rafah crossing into Gaza from Egypt.

They had witnessed how Israel was preventing the flow of food, water, and medicine to the suffering people of Gaza, and declared it as an “unfolding genocide” — “this is not the chaos of war, nor the result of an environmental disaster. It is intentional.”

Ali said Prime Minster Rabuka, and ministers Lynda Tabuya and Pio Tikoduadua had made “rather unconvincing arguments” about opening of the Fijian embassy in Jerusalem on September 18 amid the unfolding genocide in Gaza.

“Whether they like it or not, in the eyes of the world, Fiji will be seen as a country that supports the apartheid and pariah state of Israel, and its genocide in Gaza,” the statement said.

‘Not in our name’
Ali said the NGOCHR reiterated its “Not in our name” opposition to Fiji’s defence of Israel at the ICJ in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of committing genocide.

It also declared its strongest “Not in our name” opposition to the establishment of the Fiji Embassy in Jerusalem.

“Neither action reflects the wishes of all citizens of Fiji. It does not reflect well on Fiji for the present coalition government to be effectively supporting Israel’s genocide in Palestine.”

Members of the Fiji NGO Coalition on Human Rights are Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (chair), Fiji Women’s Rights Movement, Citizens’ Constitutional Forum, femLINKpacific, Social Empowerment and Education Program, and Diverse Voices and Action (DIVA) for Equality Fiji.

Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG) is an observer.

Three media commentators addressed the 98th week of New Zealand solidarity rallies for Palestine in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland today, criticising the quality of news reporting about the world’s biggest genocide crisis this century.

Speakers at other locations around the country also condemned what they said was biased media coverage.

The critics said they were affirming their humanity in solidarity with the people of Palestine as the United Nations this week officially declared a man-made famine in Gaza because of Israel’s weaponisation of starvation against the besieged enclave with 2 million population.

• READ MORE: Facing up to genocide — a New Zealand journalist bears witness with Gaza and West Bank
• NZ joins calls for urgent, independent foreign media access to Gaza
• Gaza’s ‘nutrition clinics packed amid worsening hunger crisis’
• Other killing of Gaza journalists reports

More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed in the 22 months of conflict – mostly women and children.

One of the major criticisms at the Palestine Solidarity Network (PSNA) organised rally was that the New Zealand media has consistently framed the series of massacres as a “war” between Israel and Hamas instead of a military land grab based on ethnic cleansing and genocide.

The first speaker, Mick Hall, a former news agency journalist who is currently an independent political columnist, said the way news media had covered these crimes had “undoubtedly affected public opinion”.

“As Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza devolved into a full-blown genocide, our media continued to frame Israel’s attack on Gaza as a war against Hamas, while they uncritically recorded Western leaders’ claims that Israel was exercising a ‘right of self-defence’,” he said.

NZ media lacking context
New Zealand news outlets continued to “present an ahistorical account of what has transpired since October 7, shorn of context, ignoring Israel’s history of occupation, of colonial violence against the Palestinian people”.

“An implicit understanding that violence and ethnic cleansing forms part of the organisational DNA of Zionism should have shaped how news stories were framed and presented over the past 22 months.

“Instead, newsroom leaders took their lead from our politicians, from the foreign policy positions from those in Washington and other aligned centres of power.”

Hall said newsrooms had not taken a “neutral position” — “nor are they attempting to keep us informed in any meaningful sense”.

“They failed to robustly document the type of evidence of genocide now before the International Court of Justice.

“By wilfully declining to adjudicate between contested claims of Israel and its victims, they failed to meet the informational needs of democratic citizenship in a most profound way.

“They lowered the standard of news, instead of upholding it, as they so sanctimoniously tell us.”

Evans slams media ‘apologists’
Award-winning New Zealand cartoonist Malcolm Evans congratulated the crowd of about 300 protesters for “being on the right side of history”.

“As we remember more than 240 journalists, camera and media people, murdered, assassinated, by Zionist Israel — who they were and the principles they stood for we should not forget our own media,” he said.

“The media which, contrary to the principles they claim to stand for, tried to tell us Zionist Israeli genocide was justified.”

“Whatever your understanding of the conflict in Palestine, which has brought you here today and for these past many months, it won’t have come first from the mainstream media.

“It wasn’t our reporters living in a tent in Gaza whose lives, hopes and dreams were blasted into oblivion because they exposed Zionist Israel’s evil intent.

“The reporters whose witness to Zionist Israel’s war crimes sparked your outrage were not from the ranks of Western media apologists.”

Describing the mainstream media as “pimps for propaganda”, Evans said that in any “decent world” he would not be standing there — instead the New Zealand journalists organisation would be, “expressing solidarity with their murdered Middle Eastern colleagues”.

Palestinian journalists owed debt
David Robie, author and editor of Asia Pacific Report, said the world owed a huge debt to the Palestinian journalists in Gaza.

“Although global media freedom groups have conflicting death toll numbers, it is generally accepted that more than 270 journalists and media workers have been killed — many of them deliberately targeted by the IDF [Israeli Defence Force], even killing their families as well.”

Dr Robie stressed that the Palestinian journalist death toll had eclipsed that of the combined media deaths of the American Civil War, First and Second World Wars, Korean War, Vietnam War, Cambodian War, Yugoslavia Wars, Afghan War, and the ongoing Ukraine War.

“The Palestinian death toll of journalists is greater than the combined death toll of all these other wars,” he said. “This is shocking and shameful.”

He pointed out that when Palestinian reporter Anas al-Sharif was assassinated on August 10, his entire television crew was also wiped out ahead of the Israeli invasion of Gaza City — “eliminating the witnesses, that’s what Israel does”.

Six journalists died that day in an air strike, four of them from Al Jazeera, which is banned in Israel.

Dr Robie also referred to “disturbing reports” about the existence of an IDF military unit — the so-called “legitimisation cell” — tasked with smearing and targeting journalists in Gaza with fake information.

He condemned the New Zealand media for republishing some of these “counter-narratives” without question.

“This is shameful because news editors know that they are dealing with an Israeli government with a history of lying and disinformation; a government that is on trial with the International Court of Justice for ‘plausible genocide’; and a prime minister wanted on an International Criminal Court arrest warrant to answer charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he said.

“Why would you treat this government as a credible source without scrutiny?”

Mock media cemetery
The protest included a mock pavement cemetery with about 20 “bodies” of murdered journalists and blue “press” protective vests, and placards declaring “Killing journalists is killing the truth”, “Genocide: Zionism’s final solution” and “Zionism shames Jewish tradition”.

The demonstrators marched around Te Komititanga Square, pausing at strategic moments as Palestinians read out the names of the hundreds of killed Gazan journalists to pay tribute to their courage and sacrifice.

Last year, the Gazan journalists were collectively awarded the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize for their “courage and commitment to freedom of expression”.

In Ōtautahi Christchurch today, one of the speakers at the Palestine solidarity rally there was author and journalist Saige England, who called on journalists to “speak the truth on Gaza”.

“The truth of a genocide carried out by bombs and snipers, and now there is another weapon — slow starvation, mutilation by hunger,” she said.

“The truth is a statement by Israel that journalists are ‘the enemy’. Israel says journalists are the enemy, what does that tell you?

“Why? Because it has carried out invasions, apartheid and genocide for decades.”

New Zealand’s Prime Minister says the war in Gaza is “utterly appalling” and Israeil Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost the plot”.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s comments came on a tense day in Parliament today, where the Green Party’s co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick was “named” for refusing to leave the House following a heated debate on the government’s plan to consider recognising Palestinian statehood.

Speaking to media, Luxon said Netanyahu had “gone too far”.

• READ MORE: Israel kills 73 in Gaza as UK, EU and others slam ‘unimaginable’ suffering
• Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick ‘named’ for refusing to leave Parliament
• ‘I knew these giants, Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Qreiqeh and Anas al-Sharif’ – assassinated by Israel
• MEAA condemns targeted attacks on Gaza journalists as a war crime
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

“I think he has lost the plot and I think that what we’re seeing overnight — the attack on Gaza City — is utterly, utterly unacceptable,” he said.

Luxon said Israel had consistently ignored pleas from the international community for humanitarian aid to be delivered “unfettered” and the situation was driving more human catastrophe across Gaza.

“We are a small country a long way away, with very limited trade with Israel. We have very little connection with the country, but we have stood up for values, and we keep articulating them very consistently, and what you have seen is Israel not listening to the global community at all,” Luxon said.

“We have said a forcible displacement of people and an annexation of Gaza would be a breach of international law. We have called these things out consistently time and time again.

“You’ve seen New Zealand join many of our friends and partners around the world to make these statements, and he’s just not listening,” the Prime Minister said.

Considering statehood
The government is considering whether it will join other countries like France, Canada and Australia in recognising Palestinian statehood at a UN Leader’s Meeting next month.

Luxon said recent attacks could “extinguish a pathway” to a two-state solution.

“I’m telling you what my personal view is, as a human being, looking at the situation, that’s how I feel about,” he said.

Opposition Labour Leader Chris Hipkins has called the war an “unfolding genocide”, echoing the comments made by former prime minister Helen Clark, who visited the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Palestinian territory this week. as part of The Elders’ delegation.

“She’s used the words ‘unfolding genocide’, and yes, I do agree with that. That’s a good description of the situation at the moment.”

Hipkins said calling it an “unfolding genocide” meant that New Zealand was not “appointing ourselves judge and jury” because there was still a case to be heard before the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

“Recognising that there is an unfolding genocide in Gaza is an important part of the world community standing up and saying, we’re not going to tolerate it.

“We should recognise that there is now a growing acknowledgement around the world that there is an unfolding genocide in Gaza, and I think we should call that for what it is, and the world community needs to react to that to prevent it from happening,” Hipkins said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The University of the South Pacific (USP) is at the heart of a global legal victory with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivering a historic opinion last week affirming that states have binding legal obligations to protect the environment from human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.

The case, hailed as a triumph for climate justice, was driven by a student-led movement that began within USP’s own regional classrooms.

In 2021, the government of Vanuatu took a bold step by announcing its intention to seek an advisory opinion from the ICJ on climate change. But what many may not have realised is that the inspiration behind this unprecedented move came from a group of determined young Pacific Islanders — students from USP who formed the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).

• READ MORE: How Pacific students took their climate fight to the world’s highest court. And won
• The Pacific Community (SPC) climate justice resource
• Climate Justice at the ICJ
• Other Pacific climate justice reports

According to the United Nations background information, these USP students led the charge, campaigning for years to bring the voices of vulnerable island nations to the highest court in the world.

Their call for accountability resonated across the globe, eventually leading to the adoption of a UN resolution in March 2023 that asked the ICJ two critical legal questions:

• What obligations do states have under international law to protect the environment?
• What are the legal consequences when they fail?

The result
A sweeping opinion from the ICJ affirming that climate change treaties place binding duties on countries to prevent environmental harm.

As the ICJ President, Judge Iwasawa Yuji, stated in the official delivery the court was: “Unanimously of the opinion that the climate change treaties set forth binding obligations for States parties to ensure the protection of the climate system and other parts of the environment from anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.”

USP alumni lead the celebration
USP alumna Cynthia Houniuhi, president of the PISFCC, shared her pride in a statement to USP’s official news that this landmark opinion must guide not only courtrooms but also global climate negotiations and policy decisions and it’s a call to action.

“The law is on our side. I’m proud to be on the right side of history.”

Her words reflect the essence of USP’s regional identity, a university built not just to educate, but to empower Pacific Islanders to lead solutions to the region’s most pressing challenges.

Why is the ICJ’s climate ruling such a big deal?         Video: Almost

Students in action, backed by global leaders
UN Secretary-General Antόnio Guterres, in a video message released by the UN, gave credit where it was due.

“This is a victory for our planet, for climate change and for the power of young people to make a difference. Young Pacific Islanders initiated this call for humanity to the world, and the world must respond.”

Vishal Prasad, director of PISFCC, in a video reel of the SPC (Secretariat of the Pacific Community), also credited youth activism rooted in the Pacific education system as six years ago young people from the Pacific decided to take climate change to the highest court and today the ICJ has responded.

“The ICJ has made it clear, it cemented the consensus on the science of climate change and formed the heart of all the arguments that many Pacific Island States made.”

USP’s influence is evident in the regional unity that drove this case forward showing that youth educated in the Pacific are capable of reshaping global narratives.

A win for the Pacific
From coastal erosion and rising sea levels to the legacy of nuclear testing, the Pacific lives with the frontline effects of climate change daily.

Coral Pasisi, SPC Director of Climate Change & Sustainability, highlighted in a video message, the long-term importance of the ruling:

“Climate change is already impacting them (Pacific people) and every increment that happens is creating more and more harm, not just for the generations now but those into the future. I think this marks a real moment for our kids.”

Additionally, as Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s Minister for Climate Change, noted to SPC, science was the cornerstone of the court’s reasoning.

“The opinion really used that science as the basis for its definitions of accountability, responsibility, and duty.”

Among the proud USP student voices is Siosiua Veikune, who told Tonga’s national broadcaster that this is not only a win for the students but for the Pacific islands also.

What now?
With 91 written statements and 97 countries participating in oral proceedings, this was the largest case ever seen by the ICJ and it all began with a movement sparked at USP.

Now, the challenge moves from the courtroom to the global stage and will see how nations implement this legal opinion.

Though advisory, the ICJ ruling carries immense moral and legal weight. It will likely shape global climate negotiations, strengthen lawsuits against polluting states, and empower developing nations especially vulnerable Pacific Islands to demand justice on the international stage.

For the students who dreamed it into motion, it’s only the beginning.

“Now, we have to make sure this ruling leads to real action — in parliaments, at climate summits, and in every space where our future is at stake,”  said Veikune.

Vahefonua Tupola is a second-year student journalist at University of the South Pacific’s Laucala Campus. Republshed from Wansolwara News, the USP student journalism newspaper and website in partnership with Asia Pacific Report.

Last week, the UN’s highest court issued a stinging ruling that countries have a legal obligation to limit climate change and provide restitution for harm caused, giving legal force to an idea that was hatched in a classroom in Port Vila. This is how a group of young students from Vanuatu changed the face of international law.

SPECIAL REPORT: By Jamie Tahana for RNZ Pacific

Vishal Prasad admitted to being nervous as he stood outside the imposing palace in the Hague, with its towering brick facade, marble interiors and crystal chandeliers.

It had taken more than six years of work to get here, where he was about to hear a decision he said could throw a “lifeline” to his home islands.

The Peace Palace, the home of the International Court of Justice, could not feel further from the Pacific.

• READ MORE: Other climate justice reports

Yet it was here in this Dutch city that Prasad and a small group of Pacific islanders in their bright shirts and shell necklaces last week gathered before the UN’s top court to witness an opinion they had dreamt up when they were at university in 2019 and managed to convince the world’s governments to pursue.

“We’re here to be heard,” said Siosiua Veikune, who was one of those students, as he waited on the grass verge outside the court’s gates. “Everyone has been waiting for this moment, it’s been six years of campaigning.”

What they wanted to hear was that more than a moral obligation, addressing climate change was also a legal one. That countries could be held responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions — both contemporary and historic — and that they could be penalised for their failure to act.

“For me personally, [I want] clarity on the rights of future generations,” Veikune said. “What rights are owed to future generations? Frontline communities have demanded justice again and again, and this is another step towards that justice.”

And they won.

The court’s president, Judge Yuji Iwasawa, took more than two hours to deliver an unusually stinging advisory opinion from the normally restrained court, going through the minutiae of legal arguments before delivering a unanimous ruling which largely fell on the side of Pacific states.

“The protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights,” he said, adding that sea-level rise, desertification, drought and natural disasters “may significantly impair certain human rights, including the right to life”.

After the opinion, the victorious students and lawyers spilled out of the palace alongside Vanuatu’s Climate Minister, Ralph Regenvanu. Their faces were beaming, if not a little shellshocked.

“The world’s smallest countries have made history,” Prasad told the world’s media from the palace’s front steps. “The ICJ’s decision brings us closer to a world where governments can no longer turn a blind eye to their legal responsibilities”.

“Young people around the world stepped up, not only as witnesses to injustice, but as architects of change”.

A classroom exercise
It was 2019 when a group of law students at the University of the South Pacific’s campus in Port Vila, the harbourside capital of Vanuatu, were set a challenge in their tutorial. They had been learning about international law and, in groups, were tasked with finding ways it could address climate change.

It was a particularly acute question in Vanuatu, one of the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis. Many of the students’ teenage years had been defined by Cyclone Pam, the category five storm that ripped through much of the country in 2015 with winds in excess of 250km/h.

It destroyed entire villages, wiped out swathes of infrastructure and crippled the country’s crops and water supplies. The storm was so significant that thousands of kilometres away, in Tuvalu, the waves it whipped up displaced 45 percent of the country’s population and washed away an entire islet.

Cyclone Pam was meant to be a once-in-a-generation storm, but Vanuatu has been struck by five more category five cyclones since then.

Among many of the students, there was a frustration that no one beyond their borders seemed to care particularly much, recalled Belyndar Rikimani, a student from Solomon Islands who was at USP in 2019. She saw it as obscene that the communities with the smallest carbon footprint were paying the steepest price for a crisis they had almost no hand in creating.

Each year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was releasing a new avalanche of data that painted an increasingly grim prognosis for the Pacific. But, Rikimani said, the people didn’t need reams of paper to tell them that, for they were already acutely aware.

On her home island of Malaita, coastal villages were being inundated with every storm, the schools of fish on which they relied were migrating further away, and crops were increasingly failing.

“We would go by the sea shore and see people’s graves had been taken out,” Rikimani recalled. “The ground they use to garden their food in, it is no longer as fertile as it has once been because of the changes in weather.”

The mechanism used by the world to address climate change is largely based around a UN framework of voluntary agreements and summits — known as COP — where countries thrash out goals they often fail to meet. But it was seen as impotent by small island states in the Pacific and the Caribbean, who accused the system of being hijacked by vested interests set on hindering any drastic cuts to emissions.

So, the students argued, what if there was a way to push back? To add some teeth to the international process and move the climate discussion beyond agreements and adaptation to those of equity and justice? To give small countries a means to nudge those seen to be dragging their heels.

“From the beginning we were aware of the failure of the climate system or climate regime and how it works,” Prasad, who in 2019 was studying at the USP campus in Fiji’s capital, Suva, told me.

“This was known to us. Obviously there needs to be something else. Why should the law be silent on this?”

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the main court for international law. It adjudicates disputes between nations and issues advisory opinions on big cross-border legal issues. So, the students wondered, could an advisory opinion help? What did international law have to say about climate change?

Unlike most students, who would leave such discussions in the classroom, they decided to find out. But the ICJ does not hear cases from groups or individuals; they would have to convince a government to pursue the challenge.

Together, they wrote to various Pacific governments hoping to discuss the idea. It was ambitious, they conceded, but in one of the regions most threatened by rising seas and intensifying storms, they hoped there would at least be some interest.

But rallying enough students to join their cause was the first hurdle.

“There was a lot of doubts from the beginning,” Rikimani said. “We were trying to get the students who could, you know, be a part of the movement. And it was hard, it was too big, too grand.”

In the end, 27 people gathered to form the genesis of a new organisation: Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change (PISFCC).

A couple of weeks went by before a response popped up in their inboxes. The government of Vanuatu was intrigued. Ralph Regenvanu, who was at that time the foreign minister, asked the students if they would like to swing by for a meeting.

“I still remember when [the] group came into my office to discuss this. And I felt solidarity with them,” Regenvanu recalled last week.

“I could empathise with where they were, what they were doing, what they were feeling. So it was almost like the time had come to actually, okay, let’s do something about it.”

The students — “dressed to the nines,” as Regenvanu recalled — gave a presentation on what they hoped to achieve. Regenvanu was convinced. Not long after the wider Vanuatu government was, too. Now it was time for them to convince other countries.

“It was just a matter of the huge diplomatic effort that needed to be done,” Regenvanu said. “We had Odi Tevi, our ambassador in New York, who did a remarkable job with his team. And the strategy we employed to get a core group of countries from all over the world to be with us.

“It’s interesting that, you know, some of the most important achievements of the international community originated in the Pacific,” Regenvanu said, citing efforts in the 20th century to ban nuclear testing, or support decolonisation.

“We have this unique geographic and historic position that makes us able to, as small states, have a voice that’s much louder, I think. And you saw that again in this case, that it’s the Pacific once again taking the lead to do something that is of benefit to the whole world.”

What Vanuatu needed to take the case to the ICJ was to garner a majority of the UN General Assembly — that is, a majority of every country in the world — to vote to ask the court to answer a question.

To rally support, they decided to start close to home.

Hope and disappointment
The students set their sights on the Pacific Islands Forum, the region’s pre-eminent political group, which that year was holding its annual leaders’ summit in Tuvalu. A smattering of atolls along the equator which, in recent years, has become a reluctant poster child for the perils of climate change.

Tuvalu had hoped world leaders on Funafuti would see a coastline being eaten by the ocean, evidence of where the sea washes across the entire island at king tide, or saltwater bubbles up into gardens to kill crops, and that it would convince the world that time was running out.

But the 2019 Forum was a disaster. Pacific countries had pushed for a strong commitment from the region’s leaders at their retreat, but it nearly broke down when Australia’s government refused to budge on certain red lines. The then-prime minister of Tuvalu, Enele Sopoaga, accused Australia and New Zealand of neo-colonialism, questioning their very role in the Forum.

“That was disappointing,” Prasad said. “The first push was, okay, let’s put it at the forum and ask leaders to endorse this idea and then they take it forward. It was put on the agenda but the leaders did not endorse it; they ‘noted’ it. The language is ‘noted’, so it didn’t go ahead.”

Another disappointment came a few months later, when Rikimani and another of the students, Solomon Yeo, travelled to Spain for the annual COP meeting, the UN process where the world’s countries agree their next targets to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

But small island countries left angry after a small bloc derailed any progress, despite massive protests.

That was an eye-opening two weeks in Madrid for Rikimani, whose initial scepticism of the system had been validated.

“It was disappointing when there’s nothing that’s been done. There is very little outcome that actually, you know, safeguards the future of the Pacific,” she said.

“But for us, it was the COP where there was interest being showed by various young leaders from around the world, seeing that this campaign could actually bring light to these climate negotiations.”

By now, Regenvanu said, that frustration was boiling over and more countries were siding with their campaign. By the end of 2019, that included some major countries from Europe and Asia, which brought financial and diplomatic heft. Other small-island countries from Africa and the Caribbean had also joined.

“Many of the Pacific states had never appeared before the ICJ before. So [we were] doing write shops with legal teams from different countries,” he said.

“We did write shops in Latin America, in the Caribbean, in the Pacific, in Africa, getting people just to be there at the court to present their stories, and then of course trying to coordinate.”

Meanwhile, Prasad was trying to spread word elsewhere. The hardest part, he said, was making it relevant to the people.

International law, The Hague, the Paris Agreement and other bureaucratic frameworks were nebulous and tedious. How could this possibly help the fisherman on Banaba struggling to haul in a catch?

They spent time travelling to villages and islands, sipping kava shells and sharing meals, weaving a testimony of Indigenous stories and knowledge.

In Fiji, he said, the word for land is vanua, which is also the word for life.

“It’s the source of your identity, the source of your culture. It’s this connection that the land provides the connection with the past, with the ancestors, and with a way of life and a way of doing things.”

He travelled to the village of Vunidologa where, in 2014, its people faced the rupture of having to leave their ancestral lands, as the sea had marched in too far. In the months leading up to the relocation, they held prayer circles and fasted. When the day came, the elders wailed as they made an about two kilometre move inland.

“That’s the element of injustice there. It touches on this whole idea of self-determination that was argued very strongly at the ICJ, that people’s right to self-determination is completely taken away from them because of climate change,” Prasad said.

“Some have even called it a new face of colonialism. And that’s not fair and that cannot stand in 2025.”

Preparing the case
If 2019 was the year of building momentum, then a significant hurdle came in 2020, when the coronavirus shuttered much of the world. COP summits were delayed and the Pacific Islands Forum postponed. The borders of the Pacific were sealed for as long as two years.

But the students kept finding ways to gather their body of evidence.

“Everything went online, we gathered young people who would be able to take this idea forward in their own countries,” Prasad said.

On the diplomatic front, Vanuatu kept plugging away to rally countries so that by the time the Forum leaders met again — in 2022 — they were ready to ask for support again.

“It was in Fiji and we were so worried about the Australia and New Zealand presence at the Forum because we wanted an endorsement so that it would send a signal to all the other countries: ‘the Pacific’s on board, let’s get the others’,” Prasad recalled.

“We were very worried about Australia, but it was more like if Australia declines to support then the whole process falls, and we thought New Zealand might also follow.”

They didn’t. In an about-turn, Australia was now fully behind the campaign for an advisory opinion, and the New Zealand government was by now helping out too. By the end of 2022, several European powers were also involved.

Attention now turned to developing what question they wanted to actually ask the international court. And how would they write it in such a way that the majority of the world’s governments would back it.

“That was the process where it was make and break really to get the best outcome we could,” said Regenvanu.

“In the end we got a question that was like 90 percent as good as we wanted and that was very important to get that and that was a very difficult process.”

By December 2022, Vanuatu announced that it would ask the UN General Assembly to ask the International Court of Justice to weigh what, exactly, international law requires states to do about climate change, and what the consequences should be for states that harm the climate through actions or omissions.

More lobbying followed and then, in March 2023, it came to a vote and the result was unanimous. The UN assembly in New York erupted in cheers at a rare sign of consensus.

“All countries were on board,” said Regenvanu. “Even those countries that opposed it [we] were able to talk to them so they didn’t oppose it publicly.”

They were off to The Hague.

A tense wait
Late last year, the court held two weeks of hearings in which countries put forth their arguments. Julian Aguon, a Chamorro lawyer from Guam who was one of the lead counsel, told the court that “these testimonies unequivocally demonstrate that climate change has already caused grievous violations of the right to self-determination of peoples across the subregion.”

Over its deliberations, the court heard from more than 100 countries and international organisations hoping to influence its opinion, the highest level of participation in the court’s history. That included the governments of low-lying islands and atolls, which were hoping the court would provide a yardstick by which to measure other countries’ actions.

They argued that climate change threatened fundamental human rights — such as life, liberty, health, and a clean environment — as well as other international laws like those of the sea, and those of self-determination.

In their testimonies, high-emitting Western countries, including Australia, the United States, China, and Saudi Arabia maintained that the current system was enough.

It’s been a tense and nervous wait for the court’s answer, but they finally got it last Wednesday.

“We were pleasantly surprised by the strength of the decision,” Regenvanu said. “The fact that it was unanimous, we weren’t expecting that.”

The court said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries — and, by extension, individuals and companies within those countries — were required to curb emissions. It also said the environment and human rights obligations set out in international law did indeed apply to climate change, and that countries had a right to pursue restitution for loss and damage.

The opinion is legally non-binding. But even so, it carries legal and political weight.

Individuals and groups could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the court’s opinion, and states could also return to the ICJ to hold each other to account, something Regenvanu said Vanuatu wasn’t ruling out. But, ultimately, he hoped it wouldn’t reach that point, and the advisory opinion would be seen as a wake-up call.

“We can call upon this advisory opinion in all our negotiations, particularly when countries say they can only do so much,” Regenvanu said. “They have said very clearly [that] all states have an obligation to do everything within their means according to the best available science.

“It’s really up to all countries of the world — in good faith — to take this on, realise that these are the legal obligations under custom law. That’s very clear. There’s no denying that anymore.

“And then discharge your legal obligations. If you are in breach, fix the breach, acknowledge that you have caused harm. Help to set it right. And also don’t do it again.”

Vishal Prasad still hadn’t quite processed the whole thing by the time we met again the next morning. In shorts, t-shirt, and jandals, he cut a much more relaxed figure as he reclined on a couch sipping a mug of coffee. His phone had been buzzing non-stop with messages from around the world.

“Oh, it definitely does not feel real. I don’t think it’s settled in,” he said. “I got, like, a flood of messages, well wishes. People say, ‘you guys have changed the world’. I think it’s gonna take a while.”

He was under no illusions that there was a long road ahead. The court’s advisory came at a time when international law and multilateralism was under particular strain.

When the urgency of the climate debate from a few years ago appears to have given way to a new enthusiasm for fossil fuel in some countries. He had no doubt the Pacific would continue to lead those battles.

“People have been messaging me that across the group chats they’re in, there’s this renewed sense of courage, strength and determination to do something because of what the ICJ has said,” he said.

“I’ve just been responding to messages and just saying thanks to people and just talking to them and I think it’s amazing to see that it’s been able to cause such a shift in the climate movement.”

Watching the advisory opinion being read out at 3am in Honiara was Belyndar Rikimani, hunched over a live stream in the dead of the night.

“What’s very special about this campaign is that it didn’t start with government experts, climate experts or policy experts. It started with students.

“And these law students are not from Harvard or Cambridge or all those big universities, but they are students from the Pacific that have seen the first-hand effects of climate change. It started with students who have the heart to see change for our islands and for our people.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Vanuatu’s Minister of Climate Change Adaptation, Ralph Regenvanu, has welcomed the historic International Court of Justice (ICJ) climate ruling, calling it a “milestone in the fight for climate justice”.

The ICJ has delivered a landmark advisory opinion on states’ obligations under international law to act on climate change.

The ruling marks a major shift in the global push for climate justice.

• READ MORE: UN’s highest court finds countries can be held legally responsible for emissions
• ICJ climate crisis ruling: Will world’s top court back Pacific-led call to hold governments accountable?
• Do countries have a duty to prevent climate harm? The world’s highest court is about to answer this crucial question
• Other climate crisis reports

Vanuatu — one of the nations behind the campaign — has pledged to take the decision back to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to seek a resolution supporting its full implementation.

Climate Change Minister Regenvanu said in a statement: “We now have a common foundation based on the rule of law, releasing us from the limitations of individual nations’ political interests that have dominated climate action.

“This moment will drive stronger action and accountability to protect our planet and peoples.”

The ICJ confirmed that state responsibilities extend beyond voluntary commitments under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement.

It ruled that customary international law also requires states to prevent environmental and transboundary harm, protect human rights, and cooperate to address climate change impacts.

Duties apply to all states
These duties apply to all states, whether or not they have ratified specific climate treaties.

Violations of these obligations carry legal consequences. The ICJ clarified that climate damage can be scientifically traced to specific polluter states whose actions or inaction cause harm.

As a result, those states could be required to stop harmful activities, regulate private sector emissions, end fossil fuel subsidies, and provide reparations to affected states and individuals.

“The implementation of this decision will set a new status quo and the structural change required to give our current and future generations hope for a healthy planet and sustainable future,” Minister Regenvanu added.

He said high-emitting nations, especially those with a history of emissions, must be held accountable.

Despite continued fossil fuel expansion and weakening global ambition — compounded by the United States’ withdrawal from the Paris Agreement — Regenvanu said the ICJ ruling was a powerful tool for campaigners, lawyers, and governments.

“Vanuatu is proud and honoured to have spearheaded this initiative,” he said.

‘Powerful testament’
“The number of states and civil society actors that have joined this cause is a powerful testament to the leadership of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and youth activists.”

The court’s decision follows a resolution adopted by consensus at the UNGA on 29 March 2023. That campaign was initiated by the Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change and backed by the Vanuatu government, calling for greater accountability from high-emitting countries.

The ruling will now be taken to the UNGA in September and is expected to be a central topic at COP30 in Brazil this November.

Vanuatu has committed to working with other nations to turn this legal outcome into coordinated action through diplomacy, policy, litigation, and international cooperation.<

“This is just the beginning,” Regenvanu said. “Success will depend on what happens next. We look forward to working with global partners to ensure this becomes a true turning point for climate justice.”

Republished from the Vanuatu Daily Post with permission.

The United Nations’ highest court has found that countries can be held legally responsible for their greenhouse gas emissions, in a ruling highly anticipated by Pacific countries long frustrated with the pace of global action to address climate change.

In a landmark opinion delivered yesterday in The Hague, the president of the International Court of Justice, Judge Yuji Iwasawa, said climate change was an “urgent and existential threat” that was “unequivocally” caused by human activity with consequences and effects that crossed borders.

The court’s opinion was the culmination of six years of advocacy and diplomatic manoeuvring which started with a group of Pacific university students in 2019.

• READ MORE: ICJ climate crisis ruling: Will world’s top court back Pacific-led call to hold governments accountable?
• Do countries have a duty to prevent climate harm? The world’s highest court is about to answer this crucial question
• Other climate crisis reports

They were frustrated at what they saw was a lack of action to address the climate crisis, and saw current mechanisms to address it as woefully inadequate.

Their idea was backed by the government of Vanuatu, which convinced the UN General Assembly to seek the court’s advisory opinion on what countries’ obligations are under international law.

The court’s 15 judges were asked to provide an opinion on two questions: What are countries obliged to do under existing international law to protect the climate and environment, and, second, what are the legal consequences for governments when their acts — or lack of action — have significantly harmed the climate and environment?

Overnight, reading a summary that took nearly two hours to deliver, Iwasawa said states had clear obligations under international law, and that countries — and, by extension, individuals and companies within those countries — were required to curb emissions.

Iwasawa said the environment and human rights obligations set out in international law did indeed apply to climate change.

‘Precondition for human rights’
“The protection of the environment is a precondition for the enjoyment of human rights,” he said, adding that sea-level rise, desertification, drought and natural disasters “may significantly impair certain human rights, including the right to life”.

To reach its conclusion, judges waded through tens of thousands of pages of written submissions and heard two weeks of oral arguments in what the court said was the ICJ’s largest-ever case, with more than 100 countries and international organisations providing testimony.

They also examined the entire corpus of international law — including human rights conventions, the law of the sea, the Paris climate agreement and many others — to determine whether countries have a human rights obligation to address climate change.

Major powers and emitters, like the United States and China, had argued in their testimonies that existing UN agreements, such as the Paris climate accord, were sufficient to address climate change.

But the court found that states’ obligations extended beyond climate treaties, instead to many other areas of international law, such as human rights law, environmental law, and laws around restricting cross-border harm.

Significantly for many Pacific countries, the court also provided an opinion on what would happen if sea levels rose to such a level that some states were lost altogether.

“Once a state is established, the disappearance of one of its constituent elements would not necessarily entail the loss of its statehood.”

READ HERE: The summary of the #ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change. https://t.co/7TWc7ifwfX pic.twitter.com/vVxxwpZpbX

— CIJ_ICJ (@CIJ_ICJ) July 23, 2025

Significant legal weight
The ICJ’s opinion is legally non-binding. But even so, advocates say it carries significant legal and political weight that cannot be ignored, potentially opening the floodgates for climate litigation and claims for compensation or reparations for climate-related loss and damage.

Individuals and groups could bring lawsuits against their own countries for failing to comply with the court’s opinion, and states could also return to the International Court of Justice to hold each other to account.

The opinion would also be a powerful precedent for legislators and judges to call on as they tackle questions related to the climate crisis, and give small countries greater weight in negotiations over future COP agreements and other climate mechanisms.

Outside the court, several dozen climate activists, from both the Netherlands and abroad, had gathered on a square as cyclists and trams rumbled by on the summer afternoon. Among them was Siaosi Vaikune, a Tongan who was among those original students to hatch the idea for the challenge.

“Everyone has been waiting for this moment,” he said. “It’s been six years of campaigning.

“Frontline communities have demanded justice again and again,” Vaikune said. “And this is another step towards that justice.”

‘It gives hope’
Vanuatu’s Climate Minister Ralph Regenvanu said the ruling was better than he expected and he was emotional about the result.

“The most pleasing aspect is [the ruling] was so strong in the current context where climate action and policy seems to be going backwards,” Regenvanu told RNZ Pacific.

“It gives such hope to the youth, because they were the ones who pushed this.

“I think it will regenerate an entire new generation of youth activists to push their governments for a better future for themselves.”

Regenvanu said the result showed the power of multilateralism.

“There was a point in time where everyone could compromise to agree to have this case heard here, and then here again, we see the court with the judges from all different countries of the world all unanimously agreeing on such a strong opinion, it gives you hope for multilateralism.”

He said the Pacific now has more leverage in climate negotiations.

“Communities on the ground, who are suffering from sea level rise, losing territory and so on, they know what they want, and we have to provide that,” Regenvanu said.

“Now we know that we can rely on international cooperation because of the obligations that have been declared here to assist them.”

The director of climate change at the Pacific Community (SPC), Coral Pasisi, also said the decision was a strong outcome for Pacific Island nations.

“The acknowledgement that the science is very clear, there is a direct clause between greenhouse gas emissions, global warming and the harm that is causing, particularly the most vulnerable countries.”

She said the health of the environment is closely linked to the health of people, which was acknowledged by the court.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

In 2019, a group of law students at the University of the South Pacific, frustrated at the slow pace with which the world’s governments were moving to address the climate crisis, had an idea — they would take the world’s governments to court.

They arranged a meeting with government ministers in Vanuatu and convinced them to take a case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ top court, where they would seek an opinion to clarify countries’ legal obligations under international law.

Six years after that idea was hatched in a classroom in Port Vila, the court will today (early Thursday morning NZT) deliver its verdict in the Dutch city of The Hague.

• READ MORE: Other climate crisis reports

If successful — and those involved are quietly confident they will be — it could have major ramifications for international law, how climate change disputes are litigated, and it could give small Pacific countries greater leverage in arguments around loss and damage.

Most significantly, the claimants argue, it could establish legal consequences for countries that have driven climate change and what they owe to people harmed.

“Six long years of campaigning have led us to this moment,” said Vishal Prasad, the president of Pacific Island Students Fighting Climate Change, the organisation formed out of those original students.

“For too long, international responses have fallen short. We expect a clear and authoritative declaration,” he said.

“[That] climate inaction is not just a failure of policy, but a breach of international law.”

More than 100 countries — including New Zealand, Australia and all the countries of the Pacific — have testified before the court, alongside civil society and intergovernmental organisations.

And now today they will gather in the brick palace that sits in ornate gardens in this canal-ringed city to hear if the judges of the world’s top court agree.

What is the case?
The ICJ adjudicates disputes between nations and issues advisory opinions on big international legal issues.

In this case, Vanuatu asked the UN General Assembly to request the judges to weigh what exactly international law requires states to do about climate change, and what the consequences should be for states that harm the climate through actions or omissions.

Over its deliberations, the court has heard from more than 100 countries and international organisations hoping to influence its opinion, the highest level of participation in the court’s history.

That has included the governments of low-lying islands and atolls in the Pacific, which say they are paying the steepest price for a crisis they had little role in creating.

These nations have long been frustrated with the current mechanisms for addressing climate change, like the UN COP conferences, and are hoping that, ultimately, the court will provide a yardstick by which to measure other countries’ actions.

“I choose my words carefully when I say that this may well be the most consequential case in the history of humanity,” Vanuatu’s Minister for Climate Change Ralph Regenvanu said in his statement to the court last year.

“Let us not allow future generations to look back and wonder why the cause of their doom was condoned.”

But major powers and emitters, like the United States and China, have argued in their testimonies that existing UN agreements, such as the Paris climate accord, are sufficient to address climate change.

“We expect this landmark climate ruling, grounded in binding international law, to reflect the critical legal flashpoints raised during the proceedings,” said Joie Chowdhury, a senior attorney at the US-based Centre for International Environmental Law (which has been involved with the case).

“Among them: whether States’ climate obligations are anchored in multiple legal sources, extending far beyond the Paris Agreement; whether there is a right to remedy for climate harm; and how human rights and the precautionary principle define States’ climate obligations.”

What could this mean?
Rulings from the ICJ are non-binding, and there are myriad cases of international law being flouted by countries the world over.

Still, the court’s opinion — if it falls in Vanuatu’s favour — could still have major ramifications, bolstering the case for linking human rights and climate change in legal proceedings — both international and domestic — and potentially opening the floodgates for climate litigation, where individuals, groups, Indigenous Peoples, and even countries, sue governments or private companies for climate harm.

An advisory opinion would also be a powerful precedent for legislators and judges to call on as they tackle questions related to the climate crisis, and give small countries a powerful cudgel in negotiations over future COP agreements and other climate mechanisms.

“This would empower vulnerable nations and communities to demand accountability, strengthen legal arguments and negotiations and litigation and push for policies that prioritise prevention and redress over delay and denial,” Prasad said.

In essence, those who have taken the case have asked the court to issue an opinion on whether governments have “legal obligations” to protect people from climate hazards, but also whether a failure to meet those obligations could bring “legal consequences”.

At the Peace Palace today, they will find out from the court’s 15 judges.

“[The advisory opinion] is not just a legal milestone, it is a defining moment in the global climate justice movement and a beacon of hope for present and future generations,” said Vanuatu Prime Minister Jotham Napat in a statement ahead of the decision.

“I am hopeful for a powerful opinion from the ICJ. It could set the world on a meaningful path to accountability and action.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

The New Zealand Māori Council and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa made a high profile appeal to Foreign Minister Winston Peters over Gaza today, calling for urgent action over humanitarian supplies for the besieged Palestinian enclave.

“Starving a civilian population is a clear breach of international humanitarian law and a war crime under the Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court,” said the open letter published by the two organisations as full page advertisements in three leading daily newspapers.

Noting that New Zealand has not joined the International Court of Justice for standing up to “condemn the use of starvation as a weapon of war”, the groups still called on the government to use its “internationally respected voice” to express solidarity for humanitarian aid.

• READ MORE: Israeli attacks kill more than 60 as Gaza blockade accelerates starvation
• Financial Times editorial: The West’s shameful silence on Gaza — do more to restrain Benjamin Netanyahu
• Gaza-bound aid ship attacked by ‘Israeli piracy’ in talks with Malta
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

The plea comes amid Israel’s increased attacks on Gaza which have killed at least 61 people since dawn, targeting civilians in crowded places and a Gaza City market.

The more than two-month blockade by the the enclave by Israel has caused acute food shortages, accelerating the starvation of the Palestinian population.

Israel has blocked all aid into Gaza — food, water, fuel and medical supplies — while more than 3000 trucks laden with supplies are stranded on the Egyptian border blocked from entry into Gaza.

At least 57 Palestinians have starved to death in Gaza as a result of Israel’s punishing blockade. The overall death toll, revised in view of bodies buried under the rubble, stands at 62,614 Palestinians and 1139 people killed in Israel.

The open letter, publlshed by three Stuff-owned titles — Waikato Times in Hamilton, The Post in the capital Wellington, and The Press in Christchurch, said:

Rt Hon Winston Peters
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Winston.Peters@parliament.govt.nz

Open letter requesting government action on the future of Gaza

Kia ora Mr Peters,

The situation in Occupied Gaza has reached another crisis point.

We urge our country to speak out and join other nations demanding humanitarian supplies into Gaza.

For more than two months, Israel has blocked all aid into Gaza — food, water, fuel and medical supplies. The World Food Programme says food stocks in Gaza are fully depleted. UNICEF says children face “growing risk of starvation, illness and death”. The International Committee of the Red Cross says “the humanitarian response in Gaza is on the verge of total collapse”.

Meanwhile, 3000 trucks laden with desperately needed aid are lined up at the Occupied Gaza border. Israeli occupation forces are refusing to allow them in.

Starving a civilian population is a clear breach of International Humanitarian Law and a War Crime under the Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court.

At the International Court of Justice many countries have stood up to condemn the use of starvation as a weapon of war and to demand accountability for Israel to end its industrial-scale killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

New Zealand has not joined that group. Our government has been silent to date.

After 18 months facing what the International Court of Justice has described as a “plausible genocide”, it is grievous that New Zealand does not speak out and act clearly against this ongoing humanitarian outrage.

Minister Peters, as Minister of Foreign Affairs you are in a position of leadership to carry New Zealand’s collective voice in support of humanitarian aid to Gaza to the world. We are asking you to speak on behalf of New Zealand to support the urgent international plea for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza and to initiate calls for a no-fly zone to be established over the region to prevent further mass killing of civilians.

We believe the way forward for peace and security for everyone in the region is for all parties to follow international law and United Nations resolutions, going back to UNGA 194 in 1948, so that a lasting peace can be established based on justice and equal rights for everyone.

New Zealand has an internationally respected voice — please use it to express solidarity for humanitarian aid to Gaza, today.

Nā

Ann Kendall QSM, Co-chair
Tā Taihākurei Durie, Pou [cultural leader]
NZ Māori Council

Maher Nazzal and John Minto, National Co-chairs
Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA)

The advocacy group Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa has condemned the New Zealand government fpr failing to make a humanitarian submission to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearings at The Hague this week into Israel blocking vital supplies entering Gaza.

The ICJ’s ongoing investigation into Israeli genocide in the besieged enclave is now considering the illegality of Israel cutting off all food, water, fuel, medicine and other essential aid entering Gaza since early March.

Forty three countries and organisations have been submitting this week — including the small Pacific country Vanuatu (pop. 328,000) — but New Zealand is not on the list for making a submission.

• READ MORE: Saudi Arabian envoy asks ICJ to condemn Israel’s ‘hideous conduct’ in Gaza
• Israel accused at ICJ of using aid as ‘weapons of war’ and trying to ‘destroy’ Palestinian people
• Other ICJ on Gaza reports

Only Israel’s main backer, United States, and Hungary have argued in support of Tel Aviv while other nations have been highly critical.

“If even small countries, such as Vanuatu, can commit their meagre resources to go to make a case to the ICJ, then surely our government can at the very least do the same,” said PSNA national co-chair Maher Nazzal.

He said in a statement that the New Zealand government had gone “completely silent” on Israeli atrocities in Gaza.

“A year ago, the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister were making statements about how Israel must comply with international law,” Nazzal said

NZ ‘avoided blaming Israel’
“They carefully avoided blaming Israel for doing anything wrong, but they issued strong warnings, such as telling Israel that it should not attack the city of Rafah.

“Israel then bombed Rafah flat. The New Zealand response was to go completely silent.

Nazzal said Israeli ministers were quite open about driving Palestinians out of Gaza, so Israel could build Israeli settlements there.

“And they are just as open about using starvation as a weapon,” he added.

“Our government says and does nothing. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had nothing to say about Gaza when he met British Prime Minister Keir Stamer in London earlier in the month.

“Yet Israel is perpetuating the holocaust of the 21st century under the noses of both Prime Ministers.”

Nazzal said that it was “deeply disappointing” that a nation which had so proudly invoked its history of standing against apartheid and of championing nuclear disarmament, yet chose to “not even appear on the sidelines” of the ICJ’s legal considerations.

ICJ examines Israel’s obligations in Occupied Palestine.  Video: Middle East Eye

“New Zealand cannot claim to stand for a rules-based international order while selectively avoiding the rules when it comes to Palestine,” Nazzal said.

“We want the New Zealand government to urgently explain to the public its absence from the ICJ hearings.

“We need it to commit to participating in all future international legal processes to uphold Palestinian rights, and fulfil its ICJ obligations to impose sanctions on Israel to force its withdrawal from the Palestinian Occupied Territory.”

• Official list of countries and other organisations submitting to the ICJ

Filipo Tarakinikini has been appointed as Fiji’s Ambassador-designate to Israel.

This has been stated on two official X, formerly Twitter, handle posts overnight.

“#Fiji is determined to deepen its relations with #Israel as Fiji’s Ambassador-designate to Israel, HE Ambassador @AFTarakinikini prepares to present his credentials on 28 April, 2025,” stated the Fiji at UN twitter account.

• READ MORE: Israel accused at ICJ of using aid as ‘weapons of war’ and trying to ‘destroy’ Palestinian people
• Israel’s restrictions on UN agencies in Gaza highlighted at world court
• Other Israeli war on Palestine reports

Tarakinikini is also Fiji’s current Ambassador to the United Nations.

In a separate post, Deputy Director-General Eynat Shlein of Israel’s international development cooperation agency said she was “honoured” to meet Tarakinikini.

“We discussed the vast cooperation opportunities, promoting & enhancing sustainable development, emphasizing investment in capacity building & human capital,” she said on X.

Fiji is only the seventh country in the world to open an embassy in Israel.

Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.

Centre of controversy
Pacific Media Watch reports that Lieutenant-Colonel Tarakinikini was at the centre of controversy in Fiji in 2005 when he was declared a “deserter” by the Fiji military.

However, from 1979 to 2002, he served in the Fiji Military Forces, including eight years in United Nations peacekeeping missions, among them, south Lebanon and the Multinational Force in Sinai, Egypt.

Great honor to have have this timely briefing @EynatShlein, Ambassador Roi @IsraelMFA #Fiji is determined to deepen its relations with #Israel as Fiji’s Ambassador-designate to Israel, HE Ambassador @AFTarakinikini prepares to present his credentials on 28 April, 2025 … https://t.co/mGPKjYM5Qc

— Fiji at the UN (@FijiMissionUN) April 27, 2025

Beginning in 2003, he was the UN Department for Security and Safety’s (UNDSS) Chief Security Adviser in Jerusalem, as well as in Kathmandu, Nepal, from 2006 to 2008.

From 2008 to 2018, he served in numerous United Nations integrated assessment missions, programme working groups, restructuring and redeployments and technical assessment missions.

‘Weapons of war’
Yesterday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) began week-long hearings at The Hague into global accusations of Israel using starvation and humanitarian aid as “weapons of war” and failing to meet its obligations to the Palestinian people in Gaza as the occupying power in its genocidal war on the besieged enclave.

Forty countries are expected to give evidence.

The ICJ has been tasked by the UN with providing an advisory opinion “on a priority basis and with the utmost urgency”.

Although the ICJ judges’ opinion is not binding, it provides clarity on legal questions.

In January 2024, the ICJ ruled that Israel must take “all measures” to prevent a genocide in Gaza.

Then in June, it said in an advisory opinion that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza was illegal.

Both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted on arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The International Court of Justice began hearings today into Israel’s obligations towards the presence and activities of the UN, other international organisations and third states in occupied Palestine.

The case was prompted by Israeli bills outlawing the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) in October 2024, an event that sparked global outrage and calls for unseating Israel from the UN due to accusations that it violated the founding UN charter, particularly the privileges and immunities enjoyed by UN agencies.

The ICJ hearings coincide with Israel’s continued ban on humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip since March 2 — more than 50 days — and the intensification of military attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians since the collapse of ceasefire on March 18.

• READ MORE: Israel using aid as ‘weapons of war’, Palestinian envoy tells ICJ
• Other Israeli war on Palestine reports

It will be the third advisory opinion case since 2004 to be heard before the World Court in relation to Israel’s violations of international law.

About 40 states, including Palestine, are presenting evidence before the court between April 28 and May 2. Israel’s main ally, the United States, is due to speak at the Peace Palace on Wednesday, April 30.

However, Israel is not presenting oral submissions, only a written presentation, and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar denounced the hearings as “anti-Israel’ and “shameful”.

The hearings follow the resolution of the UN General Assembly on 29 December 2024 (A/RES/79/232), mainly lobbied for by Norway, requesting the court to give an advisory opinion on the following questions:

“What are the obligations of Israel, as an occupying Power and as a member of the United Nations, in relation to the presence and activities of the United Nations, including its agencies and bodies, other international organisations and third States, in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including to ensure and facilitate the unhindered provision of urgently needed supplies essential to the survival of the Palestinian civilian population as well as of basic services and humanitarian and development assistance, for the benefit of the Palestinian civilian population, and in support of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination?”

Middle East Eye’s live coverage of the ICJ hearings.

The UNGA’s request invited the court to rule on the above question in relation to a number of legal sources, including: the UN Charter, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, privileges and immunities of international organisations and states under international law, relevant resolutions of the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council, as well as the previous advisory opinions of the court:

• the opinion of 9 July 2004 which declared Israel’s separation wall in occupied Palestine illegal; and
• the 19 July 2024 advisory opinion, which confirmed the illegality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and Israel’s obligation as an occupying power to uphold the rights of Palestinians.

‘Nowhere and no one is safe’
Swedish lawyer and diplomat Elinor Hammarskjold, who has served as the UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and its Legal Counsel since 2025, opened the proceedings.

“Under international law, states are prohibited from acquiring territory by force,” Hammarskjold said in her opening comments.

She explained that Israel was not entitled to sovereignty over the occupied territories, and that the Knesset rules and judgments against UNRWA “constitute an extension of sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territories”.

“Measures taken on basis of these laws, and other applicable Israeli law in occupied territories is inconsistent with Israel’s obligations under international law,” she concluded.

She further outlined Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law as an occupying power and obligations under the UN Charter, emphasising that it has a duty to ensure the safety of both the Palestinian people and UN personnel.

Palestine’s ambassador to the UN, Ammar Hijaz  accused Israel  of using humanitarian aid as “weapons of war”.

He told the court that Israel’s efforts to starve, kill and displace Palestinians and its targeting of the organisations trying to save their lives “are aimed at the forcible transfer and destruction of Palestinian people in the immediate term”.

‘Children will suffer irreparable damage’
In the long term, he said, “they will also ensure that our children will suffer irreparable damage and harm, placing an entire generation at great risk”.

Irish lawyer, Blinne Ni Ghralaigh, who is representing Palestine, outlined Israel’s obligations as a UN member, including its obligations to cooperate with the UN and to protect its staff and property, as well as to ensure the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people, and to abide by UN resolutions and court orders.

“Israel’s violations of these obligations are egregious and ongoing,” Ghralaigh told the court.

• The hearings are ongoing until Friday.

Sondos Asem reports for the Middle East Eye. Republished under Creative Commons.

The BBC’s news verification service, Verify, digitally reconstructed a residential tower block in Mandalay earlier this week to show how it had collapsed in a huge earthquake on March 28 in Myanmar, a country in Southeast Asia largely cut off from the outside world.

The broadcaster painstakingly pieced together damage to other parts of the city using a combination of phone videos, satellite imagery and Nasa heat detection images.

Verify dedicated much time and effort to this task for a simple reason: to expose as patently false the claims made by the ruling military junta that only 2000 people were killed by Myanmar’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake.

• READ MORE: Middle East Eye’s live coverage of the Israeli war on Palestine
• Other Jonathan Cook articles

The West sees the country’s generals as an official enemy, and the BBC wanted to show that the junta’s account of events could not be trusted. Myanmar’s rulers have an interest in undercounting the dead to protect the regime’s image.

The BBC’s determined effort to strip away these lies contrasted strongly with its coverage — or rather, lack of it — of another important story this week.

Israel has been caught in another horrifying war crime. Late last month, it executed 15 Palestinian first responders and then secretly buried them in a mass grave, along with their crushed vehicles.

Israel is an official western ally, one that the United States, Britain and the rest of Europe have been arming and assisting in a spate of crimes against humanity being investigated by the world’s highest court. Fourteen months ago, the International Court of Justice ruled it was “plausible” that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, is a fugitive from its sister court, the International Criminal Court. Judges there want to try him for crimes against humanity, including starving the 2.3 million people of Gaza by withholding food, water and aid.

Israel is known to have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, many of them women and children, in its 18-month carpet bombing of the enclave. But there are likely to be far more deaths that have gone unreported.

This is because Israel has destroyed all of Gaza’s health and administrative bodies that could do the counting, and because it has created unmarked “kill zones” across much of the enclave, making it all but impossible for first responders to reach swathes of territory to locate the dead.

The latest crime scene in Gaza is shockingly illustrative of how Israel murders civilians, targets medics and covers up its crimes — and of how Western media collude in downplaying such atrocities, helping Israel to ensure that the extent of the death toll in Gaza will never be properly known.

Struck ‘one by one’
Last Sunday, United Nations officials were finally allowed by Israel to reach the site in southern Gaza where the Palestinian emergency crews had gone missing a week earlier, on March 23. The bodies of 15 Palestinians were unearthed in a mass grave; another is still missing.

All were wearing their uniforms, and some had their hands or legs zip-tied, according to eyewitnesses. Some had been shot in the head or chest. Their vehicles had been crushed before they were buried.

Two of the emergency workers were killed by Israeli fire while trying to aid people injured in an earlier air strike on Rafah. The other 13 were part of a convoy sent to retrieve the bodies of their colleagues, with the UN saying Israel had struck their ambulances “one by one”.

Even the usual excuses, as preposterous as they are, simply won’t wash in the case of Israel’s latest atrocity — which is why it initially tried to black out the story

More details emerged during the week, with the doctor who examined five of the bodies reporting that all but one — which had been too badly mutilated by feral animals to assess — were shot from close range with multiple bullets. Ahmad Dhaher, a forensic consultant working at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, said: “The bullets were aimed at one person’s head, another at their heart, and a third person had been shot with six or seven bullets in the torso.”

Bashar Murad, the Red Crescent’s director of health programmes, observed that one of the paramedics in the convoy was in contact with the ambulance station when Israeli forces started shooting: “During the call, we heard the sound of Israeli soldiers arriving at the location, speaking in Hebrew.

“The conversation was about gathering the [Palestinian] team, with statements like: ‘Gather them at the wall and bring some restraints to tie them.’ This indicated that a large number of the medical staff were still alive.”

Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs in Palestine, reported that, on the journey to recover the bodies, he and his team witnessed Israeli soldiers firing on civilians fleeing the area. He saw a Palestinian woman shot in the back of the head and a young man who tried to retrieve her body shot, too.

Concealing slaughter
The difficulty for Israel with the discovery of the mass grave was that it could not easily fall back on any of the usual mendacious rationalisations for war crimes that it has fed the Western media over the past year and a half, and which those outlets have been only too happy to regurgitate.

Since Israel unilaterally broke a US-backed ceasefire agreement with Hamas last month, its carpet bombing of the enclave has killed more than 1000 Palestinians, taking the official death toll to more than 50,000. But Israel and its apologists, including Western governments and media, always have a ready excuse at hand to mask the slaughter.

Israel disputes the casualty figures, saying they are inflated by Gaza’s Health Ministry, even though its figures in previous wars have always been highly reliable. It says most of those killed were Hamas “terrorists”, and most of the slain women and children were used by Hamas as “human shields”.

Israel has also destroyed Gaza’s hospitals, shot up large numbers of ambulances, killed hundreds of medical personnel and disappeared others into torture chambers, while denying the entry of medical supplies.

Israel implies that all of the 36 hospitals in Gaza it has targeted are Hamas-run “command and control centres”; that many of the doctors and nurses working in them are really covert Hamas operatives; and that Gaza’s ambulances are being used to transport Hamas fighters.

Even if these claims were vaguely plausible, the Western media seems unwilling to ask the most obvious of questions: why would Hamas continue to use Gaza’s hospitals and ambulances when Israel made clear from the outset of its 18-month genocidal killing rampage that it was going to treat them as targets?

Even if Hamas fighters did not care about protecting the health sector, which their parents, siblings, children, and relatives desperately need to survive Israel’s carpet bombing, why would they make themselves so easy to locate?

Hamas has plenty of other places to hide in Gaza. Most of the enclave’s buildings are wrecked concrete structures, ideal for waging guerrilla warfare.

Israeli cover-up
Even the usual excuses, as preposterous as they are, simply won’t wash in the case of Israel’s latest atrocity — which is why it initially tried to black out the story.

Given that it has banned all Western journalists from entering Gaza, killed unprecedented numbers of local journalists, and formally outlawed the UN refugee agency Unrwa, it might have hoped its crime would go undiscovered.

But as news of the atrocity started to appear on social media last week, and the mass grave was unearthed on Sunday, Israel was forced to concoct a cover story.

It claimed the convoy of five ambulances, a fire engine, and a UN vehicle were “advancing suspiciously” towards Israeli soldiers. It also insinuated, without a shred of evidence, that the vehicles had been harbouring Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters.

Once again, we were supposed to accept not only an improbable Israeli claim but an entirely nonsensical one. Why would Hamas fighters choose to become sitting ducks by hiding in the diminishing number of emergency vehicles still operating in Gaza?

Why would they approach an Israeli military position out in the open, where they were easy prey, rather than fighting their enemy from the shadows, like other guerrilla armies — using Gaza’s extensive concrete ruins and their underground tunnels as cover?

If the ambulance crews were killed in the middle of a firefight, why were some victims exhumed with their hands tied? How is it possible that they were all killed in a gun battle when the soldiers could be heard calling for the survivors to be zip-tied?

And if Israel was really the wronged party, why did it seek to hide the bodies and the crushed vehicles under sand?

‘Deeply disturbed’
All available evidence indicates that Israel killed all or most of the emergency crews in cold blood — a grave war crime.

But as the story broke on Monday, the BBC’s News at Ten gave over its schedule to a bin strike by workers in Birmingham; fears about the influence of social media prompted by a Netflix drama, Adolescence; bad weather on a Greek island; the return to Earth of stranded Nasa astronauts; and Britain’s fourth political party claiming it would do well in next month’s local elections.

All of that pushed out any mention of Israel’s latest war crime in Gaza.

Presumably under pressure from its ordinary journalists — who are known to be in near-revolt over the state broadcaster’s persistent failure to cover Israeli atrocities in Gaza — the next day’s half-hour evening news belatedly dedicated 30 seconds to the item, near the end of the running order.

This was the perfect opportunity for BBC Verify to do a real investigation, piecing together an atrocity Israel was so keen to conceal

The perfunctory report immediately undercut the UN’s statement that it was “deeply disturbed” by the deaths, with the newsreader announcing that Israel claimed nine “terrorists” were “among those killed”.

Where was the BBC Verify team in this instance? Too busy scouring Google maps of Myanmar, it would seem.

If ever there was a region where its forensic, open-source skills could be usefully deployed, it is Gaza. After all, Israel keeps out foreign journalists, and it has killed Palestinian journalists in greater numbers than all of the West’s major wars of the past 150 years combined.

This was the perfect opportunity for BBC Verify to do a real investigation, piecing together an atrocity Israel was so keen to conceal. It was a chance for the BBC to do actual journalism about Gaza.

Why was it necessary for the BBC to contest the narrative of an earthquake in a repressive Southeast Asian country whose rulers are opposed by the West but not contest the narrative of a major atrocity committed by a Western ally?

Missing in action
This is not the first time that BBC Verify has been missing in action at a crucial moment in Gaza.

Back in January 2024, Israeli soldiers shot up a car containing a six-year-old girl, Hind Rajab, and her relatives as they tried to flee an Israeli attack on Gaza City. All were killed, but before Hind died, she could be heard desperately pleading with emergency services for help.

Two paramedics who tried to rescue her were also killed. It took two weeks for other emergency crews to reach the bodies.

It was certainly possible for BBC Verify to have done a forensic study of the incident — because another group did precisely that. Forensic Architecture, a research team based at the University of London, used available images of the scene to reconstruct the events.

It found that the Israeli military had fired 335 bullets into the small car carrying Hind and her family. In an audio recording before she was killed, Hind’s cousin could be heard telling emergency services that an Israeli tank was near them.

The sound of the gunfire, most likely from the tank’s machine gun, indicates it was some 13 metres away — close enough for the crew to have seen the children inside.

Not only did BBC Verify ignore the story, but the BBC also failed to report it until the bodies were recovered. As has happened so often before, the BBC dared not do any reporting until Israel was forced to confirm the incident because of physical evidence.

We know from a BBC journalist-turned-whistleblower, Karishma Patel, that she pushed editors to run the story as the recordings of Hind pleading for help first surfaced, but she was overruled.

When the BBC very belatedly covered Hind’s horrific killing online, in typical fashion, it did so in a way that minimised any pushback from Israel. Its headline, “Hind Rajab, 6, found dead in Gaza days after phone calls for help”, managed to remove Israel from the story.

Evidence buried
A clear pattern thus emerges. The BBC also tried to bury the massacre of the 15 Palestinian first responders — keeping it off its website’s main page — just as Israel had tried to bury the evidence of its crime in Gaza’s sand.

The story’s first headline was: “Red Cross outraged over killing of eight medics in Gaza”. Once again, Israel was removed from the crime scene.

Only later, amid massive backlash on social media and as the story refused to go away, did the BBC change the headline to attribute the killings to “Israeli forces”.

But subsequent stories have been keen to highlight the self-serving Israeli claim that its soldiers were entitled to execute the paramedics because the presence of emergency vehicles at the scene of much death and destruction was “suspicious”.

In one report, a BBC journalist managed to shoe-horn this same, patently ridiculous “defence” twice into her two-minute segment. She reduced the discovery of an Israeli massacre to mere “allegations”, while a clear war crime was soft-soaped as only an “apparent” one.

Notably, the BBC has on one solitary occasion managed to go beyond other media in reporting an attack on an ambulance crew. The footage incontrovertibly showed a US-supplied Apache helicopter firing on the crew and a young family they were trying to evacuate.

There was no possibility the ambulance contained “terrorists” because the documentary team were filming inside the vehicle with paramedics they had been following for months. The video was included near the end of a documentary on the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, seen largely through the eyes of children.

But the BBC quickly pulled that film, titled Gaza: How to Survive a War Zone, after the Israel lobby manufactured a controversy over one of its child narrators being the son of Gaza’s deputy Agriculture Minister, who served in the Hamas-run civilian government.

Wholesale destruction
The unmentionable truth, which has been evident since the earliest days of the 18-month genocide, is that Israel is intentionally dismantling and destroying Gaza’s health sector, piece by piece.

According to the UN, Israel’s war has killed at least 1060 healthcare workers and 399 aid workers — those deaths it has been possible to identify — and wrecked Gaza’s health facilities. Israel has rounded up hundreds of medical staff and disappeared many of them into what Israeli human rights groups call torture chambers.

One doctor, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, director of the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, has been held by Israel since he was abducted in late December. During brief contacts with lawyers, Dr Safiya revealed that he is being tortured.

Other doctors have been killed in Israeli detention from their abuse, including one who was allegedly raped to death.

Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and execution of medical personnel is part of the same message: there is nowhere safe, no sanctuary, the laws of war no longer apply

Why is Israel carrying out this wholesale destruction of Gaza’s health sector? There are two reasons. Firstly, Netanyahu recently reiterated his intent to carry out the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

He presents this as “voluntary migration”, supposedly in accordance with US President Donald Trump’s plan to relocate the enclave’s population of 2.3 million Palestinians to other countries.

There can be nothing voluntary about Palestinians leaving Gaza when Israel has refused to allow any food or aid into the enclave for the past month, and is indiscriminately bombing Gaza. Israel’s ultimate intention has always been to terrify the population into flight.

Israel’s ambassador to Austria, David Roet, was secretly recorded last month stating that “there are no uninvolved in Gaza”— a constant theme from Israeli officials. He also suggested that there should be a “death sentence” for anyone Israel accuses of holding a gun, including children.

Meanwhile, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has threatened the “total devastation” of Gaza’s civilian population should they fail to “remove Hamas” from the enclave, something they are in no position to do.

Not surprisingly, faced with the prospect of an intensification of the genocide and the imminent annihilation of themselves and their loved ones, ordinary people in Gaza have started organising protests against Hamas — marches readily reported by the BBC and others.

Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and execution of medical personnel is part of the same message: there is nowhere safe, no sanctuary, the laws of war no longer apply, and no one will come to your aid in your hour of need.

You are alone against our snipers, drones, tanks and Apache helicopters.

Too much to bear
The second reason for Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s health sector is that we in the West, or at least our governments and media, have consented to Israel’s savagery — and actively participated in it — every step of the way. Had there been any meaningful pushback at any stage, Israel would have been forced to take another course.

When David Lammy, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, let slip in Parliament last month the advice he has been receiving from his officials since he took up the job last summer — that Israel is clearly violating international law by starving the population — he was immediately rebuked by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office.

Let us not forget that Starmer, when he was opposition leader, approved Israel’s genocidal blocking of food, water and electricity to Gaza, saying Israel “had that right”.

In response to Lammy’s comments, Starmer’s spokesperson restated the government’s view that Israel is only “at risk” of breaching international law — a position that allows the UK to continue arming Israel and providing it with intelligence from British spy flights over Gaza from a Royal Air Force base in Cyprus.

Our politicians have consented to everything Israel has done, and not just in Gaza over the past 18 months. This genocide has been decades in the making.

Three-quarters of a century ago, the West authorised the ethnic cleansing of most of Palestine to create a self-declared Jewish state there. The West consented, too, to the violent occupation of the last sections of Palestine in 1967, and to Israel’s gradual colonisation of those newly seized territories by armed Jewish extremists.

The West nodded through waves of house demolitions carried out against Palestinian communities by Israel to “Judaise” the land. It backed the Israeli army creating extensive “firing zones” on Palestinian farmland to starve traditional agricultural communities of any means of subsistence.

The West ignored Israeli settlers and soldiers destroying Palestinian olive groves, beating up shepherds, torching homes, and murdering families. Even being an Oscar winner offers no immunity from the rampant settler violence.

The West agreed to Israel creating an apartheid road system and a network of checkpoints that kept Palestinians confined to ever-shrinking ghettoes, and building walls around Palestinian areas to permanently isolate them from the rest of the world.

It allowed Israel to stop Palestinians from reaching one of their holiest sites, Al-Aqsa Mosque, on land that was supposed to be central to their future state.

The West kept quiet as Israel besieged the two million people of Gaza for 17 years, putting them on a tightly rationed diet so their children would grow ever-more malnourished. It did nothing — except supply more weapons — when the people of Gaza launched a series of non-violent protests at their prison walls around the enclave, and were greeted with Israeli sniper fire that left thousands dead or crippled.

The West only found a collective voice of protest on 7 October 2023, when Hamas managed to find a way to break out of Gaza’s choking isolation to wreak havoc in Israel for 24 hours. It has been raising its voice in horror at the events of that single day ever since, drowning out 18 months of screams from the children being starved and exterminated in Gaza.

The murder of 15 Palestinian medics and aid workers is a tiny drop in an ocean of Israeli criminality — a barbarism rewarded by Western capitals decade after decade.

This genocide was made in the West. Israel is our progeny, our ugly reflection in the mirror — which is why Western leaders and establishment media are so desperate to make us look the other way. That reflection is too much for anyone with a soul to bear.

Jonathan Cook is a writer, journalist and media critic, and author of many books about Palestine. He is a winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. Republished from the Middle East Eye and the author’s blog with permission.

Activists in Aotearoa New Zealand marked International Women’s Day today and the start of Ramadan this week with solidarity rallies across the country, calling for justice and peace for Palestinian women and the territories occupied illegally by Israel.

The theme this year for IWD is “For all women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment” and this was the 74th week of Palestinian solidarity protests.

First speaker at the Auckland rally today, Del Abcede of the Aotearoa section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), said the protest was “timely given how women have suffered the brunt of Israel’s war on Palestine and the Gaza ceasefire in limbo”.

• READ MORE: Muslim nations condemn Israel’s ‘war crimes and acts of genocide’
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“Women are the backbone of families and communities. They provide care, support and nurturing to their families and the development of children,” she said.

“Women also play a significant role in community building and often take on leadership roles in community organisations. Empowered women empower the world.”

Abcede explained how the non-government organisation WILPF had national sections in 37 countries, including the Palestine branch which was founded in 1988. WILPF works close with its Palestinian partners, Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling (WCLAC) and General Union of Palestinian Women (GUPW).

“This catastrophe is playing out on our TV screens every day. The majority of feminists in Britain — and in the West — seem to have nothing to say about it,” Abcede said, quoting gender researcher Dr Maryam Aldosarri, to cries of shame.

‘There can be no neutrality’
“In the face of such overwhelming terror, there can be no neutrality.”

Dr Aldosarri said in an article published earlier in the war on Gaza last year that the “siege and indiscriminate bombardment” had already “killed, maimed and disappeared under the rubble tens of thousands of Palestinian women and children”.

“Many more have been displaced and left to survive the harsh winter without appropriate shelter and supplies. The almost complete breakdown of the healthcare system, coupled with the lack of food and clean water, means that some 45,000 pregnant women and 68,000 breastfeeding mothers in Gaza are facing the risk of anaemia, bleeding, and death.

“Meanwhile, hundreds of Palestinian women and children in the occupied West Bank are still imprisoned, many without trial, and trying to survive in abominable conditions.”

The death toll in the war — with killings still happening in spite of the precarious ceasefire — is now more than 50,000 — mostly women and children.

Abcede read out a statement from WILPF International welcoming the ceasefire, but adding that it “was only a step”.

“Achieving durable and equitable peace demands addressing the root causes of violence and oppression. This means adhering to the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 advisory opinion by dismantling the foundational structures of colonial violence and ensuring Palestinians’ rights to self-determination, dignity and freedom.”

Action for justice and peace
Abcede also spoke about what action to take for “justice and peace” — such as countering disinformation and influencing the narrative; amplifying Palstinian voices and demands; joining rallies — “like what we do every Saturday”; supporting the global BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaign against Israel; writing letters to the government calling for special visas for Palestinians who have families in New Zealand; and donating to campaigns supporting the victims.

Gaza’s hospitals had been “reduced to rubble by Israeli bombs”, she said.

“UN reports that over 60,000 women would give birth this year in Gaza. But Israel has destroyed every maternity hospital.

“Women will be delivered in tents, corridors, or bombed out homes without anasthesia, without doctors, without clean water.

“When Israel killed Gaza’s only foetal medicine specialist, Dr Muhammad Obeid, it wasn’t collateral damage — it was calculated reproductive terror.”

“Now, miscarriages have spiked by 300 percent, and mothers stitch their own C-sections with sewing thread.”

‘Femicide – a war crime’
Babies who survived birth entered a world where Israel blocked food aid — 1 in 10 infants would die of starvation, 335,000 children faced starvation, and their mothers forced to watch, according to UNICEF.

“This is femicide — this is a war crime.”

Eugene Velasco, of the Filipino feminist action group Gabriela Aotearoa, said Israel’s violence in Gaza was a “clear reminder of the injustice that transcends geographical borders”.

“The injustice is magnified in Gaza where the US-funded genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people has resulted in the deaths of more than 61,000.”

‘Pernicious’ Regulatory Standards Bill
Dr Jane Kelsey, a retired law professor and justice advocate, spoke of an issue that connected the “scourge of colonisation in Palestine and Aotearoa with the same lethal logic and goals”.

The parallels between both colonised territories included theft of land and the creation of private property rights, and the denial of sovereign authority and self-determination.

She spoke of how international treaties that had been entered in good faith were disrespected, disregarded and “rewritten as it suits the colonising power”.

Dr Kelsey said an issue that had “gone under the radar” needed to be put on the radar and for action.

She said that while the controversial Treaty Principles Bill would not proceed because of the massive mobilisations such as the hikoi, it had served ACT’s purpose.

“Behind the scenes is ACT’s more systemic and pernicious Regulatory Standards Bill,” she said. ACT had tried three times to get the bill adopted and failed, but it was now in the coalition government’s agreement.

A ‘stain on humanity’
Meanwhile, Hamas has reacted to a Gaza government tally of the number of women who were killed by Israel’s war, reports Al Jazeera.

“The killing of 12,000 women in Gaza, the injury and arrest of thousands, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands are a stain on humanity,” the group said.

“Palestinian female prisoners are subjected to psychological and physical torture in flagrant violation of all international norms and conventions.”

Hamas added the suffering endured by Palestinian female prisoners revealed the “double standards” of Western countries, including the United States, in dealing with Palestinians.

The State of Palestine has submitted a written plea to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) asking it for an advisory opinion regarding Israel’s obligations not to obstruct humanitarian and development assistance in the territories it occupies, Al Jazeera reports.

In the submission, Palestinian officials affirmed the responsibility of Israel, as an occupying power, to not obstruct the work of the UN, international organisations, and third states so they can provide essential services, humanitarian aid, and development assistance to the Palestinian people.

Many states, as well as international groups, have submitted written pleas to the ICJ ahead of oral proceedings set to start next month.

• READ MORE: Israel threatens a second Nakba, yet denies the first ever happened
• First phase of Israel-Hamas ceasefire ends with no deal

Last July, the ICJ issued a historic advisory opinion determining Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible”.

Widespread ‘torture’ of Gaza medics in Israeli custody
In a separate report, the Israeli branch of Physicians for Human Rights accused the Israeli military of detaining more than 250 medical personnel and support staff since the beginning of the war on Gaza in October 2023.

More than 180 remained in detention without a clear indication of when or if they would be released, the physicians’ report said.

“Detainees endure physical, psychological and sexual abuse as well as starvation and medical neglect amounting to torture,” the report said, denouncing a “deeply ingrained policy”.

Healthcare workers were beaten, threatened, and forced to sign documents in Hebrew during their detention, according to the report based on 20 testimonies collected in prison.

“Medical personnel were primarily questioned about the Israeli hostages, tunnels, hospital structures and Hamas’s activity,” it said.

“They were rarely asked questions linking them to any criminal activity, nor were they presented with substantive charges.”

Where does Trump stand on the Gaza ceasefire?
With phase one of the ceasefire due to end today and negotiations barely started on phase two, serious fears are being raised over  the viability of the ceasefire.

President Donald Trump took credit for the truce that his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff helped push across the finish line after a year of negotiations led by the Biden administration, Egypt and Qatar, reports Al Jazeera.

However, Trump has since sent mixed signals about the deal.

Earlier last month, he set a firm deadline for Hamas to release all the captives, warning “all hell is going to break out” if it didn’t.

But he said it was ultimately up to Israel, and the deadline came and went.

Trump sowed further confusion by proposing that Gaza’s population of about 2.3 million be relocated to other countries and for the US to take over the territory and develop it.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed the idea, but it was universally rejected by Palestinians and Arab countries, including close US allies. Human rights groups said it could violate international law.

Trump stood by the plan in a Fox News interview over the weekend but said he was “not forcing it”.

Responding to DAWN’s referral of Biden, Blinken & Austin to the ICC for investigation for aiding Israeli war crimes, @alhaq_org‘s @SJabaren says:

“Finally, we see an effort to hold” accountable “US officials who have armed, financed and politically defended Israeli atrocities.” pic.twitter.com/yCpRaogE2I

— DAWN MENA (@DAWNmenaorg) February 28, 2025

‘Finally’ an effort to hold the US accountable, says Al-Haq director
Palestinian human rights activist Shawan Jabarin has welcomed a plea by the US-based rights group DAWN for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate Joe Biden and senior US officials for aiding Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

In a video posted by DAWN, Jabarin, director of the Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, said the effort was long overdue.

“For decades we have called on the international community to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law, but time and again, the US has used its power and influence to block that accountability, to shield Israel from consequences and to ensure that it can continue its crimes with impunity,” Jabarin said.

“Now, finally, we see an effort to hold not just Israeli officials accountable but also those who have made these crimes possible: US officials who have armed, financed, and politically defended Israeli atrocities.”

New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ refusal to join 79 other countries trying to protect the International Criminal Court (ICC) after vicious attacks and sanctions issued by US President Trump is unconscionable.

Endless New Zealand politicians, including the present government, have pointed to our support for a rules-based international system.

The ICC is a key part of that system but Winston Peters has jettisoned this policy in favour of a US-First approach, rather than a New Zealand-First approach.

• READ MORE: World leaders react to Trump sanctions on International Criminal Court

In fact, we can find no evidence that Peters has ever uttered a word of real criticism of the US in his entire political career.

Within the past two weeks Winston Peters has:

• Openly welcomed Israeli soldiers and Israeli war criminals coming into New Zealand, with no questions asked, for “rest and recreation” from their genocide in Gaza
• Refused to condemn Trump’s racist plans for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza so his son-in-law can turn it into a “Riviera of the Middle East”.  This is an intended international crime of epic proportion, and now
• Refused to join 79 countries supporting the International Criminal Court against Trump’s actions

The countries we are refusing to join in criticising Trump include two other Five Eyes countries — the UK and Canada — as well as Germany, France, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands, Greece, Norway, Portugal, Spain and so on.

Extremist camp
Winston Peters has put New Zealand in the hard-right international minority extremist camp with Trump. This is creepy and cowardly complicity with a state whose values we do not share.

His ministry has been at great pains over the past year to state how much our government supports the work of the ICC. The MFAT website states: “We have also been clear in our support of the International Criminal Court’s mandate in Palestine.”

But when the ICC issues arrest warrants against Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity, our government goes completely silent.

Will Winston Peters now copy his master and revoke an immigration ban on 33 Israeli settlers responsible for leading pogroms against Palestinian communities in the Occupied West Bank, as Trump did a few days ago?

US policy towards Palestine underlines the case for New Zealand to leave the Five Eyes US international spy network.

An independent foreign policy means making our own decisions and working with the great majority of like-minded countries who support international institutions, such as the ICC and the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Instead, we have a foreign minister who is in the US pocket and blindly working for the interests of Trump and his robber barons.

John Minto is national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

UN Special Rapporteur to the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese has hailed the formation of The Hague Group, describing it as the “best news” from a coalition of policymakers “in a long time”.

Formed on Friday in the city of its namesake, The Hague Group’s members — Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa — have joined together to “end Israeli occupation of the State of Palestine”.

The groups said in a joint statement that they could not “remain passive in the face of such international crimes” committed by Israel against the Palestinians.

• READ MORE: Joy as first Palestinian prisoners freed after 3 captives released in Gaza

They said they would work to see the “realisation of the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, including the right to their independent State of Palestine”.

Albanese said on social media: “Let’s make it real. And let’s keep growing.”

BREAKING The Inaugural Joint Statement of The Hague Group. https://t.co/J2BsKIRmd8 pic.twitter.com/76noGvDE8v

— Progressive International (@ProgIntl) January 31, 2025

“The Hague Group’s formation sends a clear message — no nation is above the law, and no crime will go unanswered,” said the South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ronald Lamola.

South Africa filed a case before the International Court of Justice alleging genocide in 2023 and an interim ruling in January 2024 said that there was “plausible genocide” and accepted the case for substantive judgment. Since then, 14 countries have joined the proceedings in support of South Africa and Palestine.

Malaysia has been preparing a draft resolution for United Nations to expel Israel from the global body.

Joyful scenes erupted today as buses carrying Palestinian prisoners released under last month’s Gaza ceasefire deal arrived in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank. A total of 183 prisoners were due to be freed today.

Three captives — Keith Siegel, Ofer Kalderon and Yarden Bibas– were earlier released in two separate locations in southern and northern Gaza.

NZ ‘march for the martyrs’ protest
In New Zealand’s largest city Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau today, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters staged a vigil and march for the more than 47,000 Palestinians killed in Israel’s war on Gaza — mostly women and children.

More than 44,500 names of the victims of the genocidal war were spread out on the pavement of Te Komititanga Square in the heart of Auckland and one of the organisers, Dr Abdallah Gouda, said: “It is important to honour the names, they are people, families — they are not just numbers, statistics.”

A canvas with an outline of Palestine flag was also spread out and protesters invited to dip their fingers in black, red and green paint — the colours of the Palestinian flag — and daub the ensign with their collective fingerprints.

This was part of a global campaign to “stamp my imprint” for the return to Palestine.

“Each mark represents solidarity and remembrance for those who have lost their lives in the struggle for justice,” said the campaign.

“As you add your fingerprint, please take a moment to reflect on their sacrifice and the collective desire for peace and freedom.

“This canvas will become a living tribute with each fingerprint contributing to a powerful symbol of unity and support.”

The protesters followed with a “march for the martyrs” through central streets of Auckland past the consulate of the United States, main backer and arms supplier to Israel, and beside the city’s iconic harbourside.

More than 100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the ceasefire was signed and came into force on January 19.

UNRWA chief “salutes’ aid staff defying Israeli ban
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports that the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has hailed staff for continuing to work despite an Israeli ban on their operations coming into force on Thursday.

In a post on social media, Philippe Lazzarini said: “I salute the commitment of UNRWA staff”.

“We remain committed to upholding the humanitarian principles and fulfil our mandate,” Lazzarini said.

He noted that nearly 500,000 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, continued to access healthcare provided by UNRWA.

Since the start of the ceasefire in Gaza, UNRWA has ensured that humanitarian food supplies entering the territory under bombardment have reached more than 600,000 people, he said.

“UNRWA must be allowed to do its work until Palestinian institutions are empowered and capable within a Palestine State,” he added.

Israel passed a law in October that came into effect this week, banning UNRWA from operating on Israeli territory — including in East Jerusalem where its headquarters is located — and prohibiting contact with Israeli authorities.

However, Israel is occupying the Palestinian territories illegally in defiance of many UN resolutions ordering it to leave.

UNRWA has said that it is mandated by the UN General Assembly and is committed to staying open and delivering services to Palestinians despite Israel’s prohibitions.

The International Court of Justice heard last month that after reconstruction is factored in Israel’s war on Gaza will have emitted 52 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. A figure equivalent to the annual emissions of 126 states and territories.

It seems somehow wrong to be writing about the carbon footprint of Israel’s 15-month onslaught on Gaza.

The human cost is so unfathomably ghastly. A recent article in the medical journal The Lancet put the death toll due to traumatic injury at more than 68,000 by June of last year (40 percent higher than the Gaza Health Ministry’s figure.)

• READ MORE: Historic climate change advisory: what the case before the International Court of Justice might mean
• Israel’s raid renders Jenin ‘nearly uninhabitable’; 808 trucks enter Gaza
• Other Gaza and climate crisis reports

An earlier letter to The Lancet by a group of scientists argued the total number of deaths — based on similar conflicts — would be at least four times the number directly killed by bombs and bullets.

Seventy-four children were killed in the first week of 2025 alone. More than a million children are currently living in makeshift tents with regular reports of babies freezing to death.

Nearly two million of the strip’s 2.2 million inhabitants are displaced.

Ninety-six percent of Gaza’s children feel death is imminent and 49 percent wish to die, according to a study sponsored by the War Child Alliance.

Truly apocalyptic
I could, and maybe should, go on. The horrors visited on Gaza are truly apocalyptic and have not received anywhere near the coverage by our mainstream media that they deserve.

The contrast with the blanket coverage of the LA fires that have killed 25 people to date is instructive. The lives and property of those in the rich world are deemed far more newsworthy than those living — if you can call it that — in what retired Israeli general Giora Eiland described as a giant concentration camp.

The two stories have one thing in common: climate change.

In the case of the LA fires the role of climate change gets mentioned — though not as much as it should.

But the planet destroying emissions generated by the genocide committed against the Palestinians rarely makes the news.

Incredibly, when the State of Palestine — which is responsible for 0.001 percent of global emissions — told the International Court of Justice, in the Hague, last month, that the first 120 days of the war on Gaza resulted in emissions of between 420,000 and 650,000 tonnes of carbon and other greenhouse gases it went largely unreported.

For context that is the equivalent to the total annual emissions of 26 of the lowest-emitting states.

Fighter planes fuel
Jet fuel burned by Israeli fighter planes contributed about 157,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent.

Transporting the bombs dropped on Gaza from the US to Israel contributed another 159,000 tonnes of CO2e.

Those figures will not appear in the official carbon emissions of either country due to an obscene exemption for military emissions that the US insisted on in the Kyoto negotiations. The US military’s carbon footprint is larger than any other institution in the world.

Professor of law Kate McIntosh, speaking on behalf of the State of Palestine, told the ICJ hearings, on the obligations of states in respect of climate change, that the emissions to date were just a fraction of the likely total.

Once post-war reconstruction is factored in the figure is estimated to balloon to 52 million tonnes of CO2e — a figure higher than the annual emissions of 126 states and territories.
Far too many leaders of the rich world have turned a blind eye to the genocide in Gaza, others have actively enabled it but as the fires in LA show there’s no escaping the impacts of climate change.

The US has contributed more than $20 billion to Israel’s war on Gaza — a huge figure but one that is dwarfed by the estimated $250 billion cost of the LA fires.

And what price do you put on tens of thousands who died from heatwaves, floods and wildfires around the world in 2024?

The genocide in Gaza isn’t only a crime against humanity, it is an ecocide that threatens the planet and every living thing on it.

Jeremy Rose is a Wellington-based journalist and his Towards Democracy blog is at Substack.

‘In Gaza, only UNRWA has the infrastructure to distribute aid to scale, such as vehicles, warehouses, distribution centres and staff. However, Israeli authorities are making this extremely difficult,’ writes Chris Gunness.

To be Jewish does not mean an automatic identification with the rogue state of Israel. Nor does it mean that Jews are automatically threatened by criticism of Israel, yet our media and Labor and Liberal politicians would have you believe this is the case.

We are seeing a debate in Australia about the so-called rise of antisemitism which includes rally chants for Gaza at a time when we are witnessing the most horrific Israeli genocide of Palestinians in which our government is complicit.

Jewish peak bodies here and internationally have continually linked their identity to that of Israel.

• READ MORE: Attorney-General Dreyfus’ trip to Israel makes a mockery of Labor’s foreign policy
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

Why? Can generations of Jews in this country still believe that Israel represents anything like the myths that were perpetrated at its inception?

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Zionist Federation of Australia, the Jewish Board of Deputies and others, all staunchly defend this apartheid state that is accused of plausible genocide by the UN International Court of Justice and confirmed by dozens of human rights and legal NGOs, UN Rapporteurs, medical organisations and holocaust scholars.

Israel’s Prime Minister and former Defence Minister have been charged as war criminals by the International Criminal Court and must be arrested and tried in the Hague, yet Australia maintains a cosy relationship with Israel and our media dutifully repeats its outright lies verbatim.

Conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism has been the main focus of the Israeli state and its defenders for decades. With the emergence of the Palestinian-led Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement in 2005, Israel’s narrative was countered, leading to a persistent Israeli directed campaign to link BDS with antisemitism.

Colonial, occupying power
BDS focuses on the actions of Israel as a colonial, occupying power violating international law against the indigenous people of Palestine. It is anti-racist and human rights-centred.

On December 11, we heard Prime Minister Albanese at the Jewish Museum in Sydney combining his support for Jewish people with his ongoing condemnation and active campaigning against BDS.

He referred to the Marrickville Council BDS motion, (which I proposed back in 2010 along with my Greens councillor colleague, Marika Kontellis), and again repeated the bald-faced mistruths that were spread back then about BDS and the intent and focus of the Marrickville motion.

“I was part of a campaign against BDS in my own local government area. At the time I argued that if you start targeting businesses because they happen to be owned by Jewish people, you’ll end up with the Star of David above shops.

“And that ended in World War II, during the Holocaust, with six million lives lost, murdered. We need an end to antisemitism.”

In one sentence we see Albanese’s extremely offensive equation of the horror of the Holocaust and antisemitism, directly linked to BDS. Why would a prime minister and local federal member deliberately mischaracterise BDS, given the movement has always been clear that its targets are global companies and corporations that are complicit in the Israeli state’s apartheid and genocidal actions, as well as Israeli government bodies and arms companies?

Tonight on @SystemUpdate_, live at 7pm ET:

Amidst intense hysteria over January 6, Congress certifies the Electoral College victory of “Hitler”

Plus: the latest serious attacks on free speech rights to protect Israel: from NY State to Australia:https://t.co/iyckmya5UG

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 6, 2025

The latest serious attacks on free speech rights to protect Israel — the targeting of prominent Australian broadcaster @MaryKostakidis   Video: Glenn Greenwald

What is in it for Albanese, Wong, Plibersek or Dutton and all of the politicians back in 2010/2011 who appeared to think there was political advantage in scapegoating BDS by jumping on the frenzied anti-BDS campaign?

Fawning support for Israel
It was obvious back then, as it is now, that their fawning support for the rogue Israeli state knows no bounds. Lock step in line with the United States outlier position, Australia has maintained its repugnant inaction in the face of 15 months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza despite continued condemnation by the UN and a majority of states.

But Australia has, however, appointed a public supporter of Zionism and the Israeli state, as its special envoy on antisemitism.

The inaction by all states since 1948 to apply sanctions has gifted Israel the impunity that’s led to its industrial scale slaughter of innocents in Gaza and its continuing violence and killing of civilians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. All governments must bear responsibility for this.

Albanese has been described as an opportunist, liar and a bully.

At the time of the Marrickville BDS, he used the situation to attempt to discredit the Greens who were challenging the incumbent Labor state member, Carmel Tebbutt (his former wife). He fanned the national media frenzy that was fed by pro-Israel Jewish lobbyists who were the long-time custodians of the “reputation” of Israel.

Marrickville Council and the Greens were characterised as antisemites who would be pulling Jewish books out of the local library.

This insanity was akin to what is happening today. The legitimate opposition to the worst, most egregious, brutality of the Israeli state has somehow been cleverly morphed into so-called expressions of antisemitism.

Absurd claims on protest
In the media conference of December 11, Albanese also made absurd claims that the peaceful 24-hour protest outside his electorate office in Marrickville was displaying Hamas symbols in a vile attempt to discredit the constituents he had refused to meet for more than eight months.

He and his colleagues in Canberra continue to appease the powerful Israel lobby at the expense of our rights and the rights and visibility of the whole Palestinian population here and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories who are now literally on death row.

Back then, we heard locally that he and the party had bullied the four Labor councillors to vote to rescind the Marrickville BDS motion that they had all previously wholeheartedly supported. Some months earlier these same councillors had also supported a motion condemning the latest Israeli strike against Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

The meaning of BDS was no secret to them — they appreciated that it was important for a council to check its ethical purchasing guidelines to ensure that it was not supporting companies that were in violation of international human rights law by operating in the illegal Israeli settlements or by providing technology or services that maintained Israel’s apartheid and dispossession of Palestinians.

They knew then, as we know now, that this is not antisemitic. They knew then that no Jewish businesses per se were the target of this peaceful civil rights movement. And they knew then that the Labor Party was lying for political gain.

Now, as for far too many decades, political parties in power in this country have failed Palestinians for political gain and at the behest of Israel lobby groups which dare to speak on behalf of anti-Zionist Jews like me.

Despite all the gratuitous rhetoric, these politicians have failed to uphold the basic precepts of human rights law — rights they regularly give lip service to, but rights they will never defend by taking the action required of them as signatories to numerous UN conventions.

Australia must sanction Israel
To act with humanity and to act as required by international law, Australia must sanction and end all economic and military ties with the Israeli state.

We must expel the Israeli ambassador and bring our ambassador back and we must prosecute any Australian citizen or resident who has joined the IDF to kill Palestinians. We must also support Palestinian refugees and take all action necessary to assist those in Gaza for as long as it takes.

But as we have seen so clearly this year, most governments have not acted to pressure Israel to end its barbaric colonial project. To protest as allies and to call out the hypocrisy of governments and politicians that speak of a rules-based order while enabling a state that has continually breached fundamental human rights laws, is to be called antisemitic.

The pressure applied to governments, universities and the like in recent years to adopt the discredited IHRA definition of antisemitism is precisely because it equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

It’s the perfect tool for shutting down condemnation of Israel’s grave human rights violations. We’ve seen some universities and parliaments endorse it in deference to this pressure, despite the serious flaws that have been identified, including from Jewish Israeli experts.

Now more than ever BDS is imperative.

BDS campaigns will work to isolate Israel as it should be isolated until it complies with international law. Multinational companies are increasingly loath to be associated with this terror state.

Major pension funds are divesting from companies that are complicit in Israel’s human rights violations and local councils, unions and universities are taking steps to ensure they divest from any partnerships or investments that would make them part of the chain of complicity and liable for prosecution by the International Court of Justice as enabling Israel’s genocide.

The facts are indisputable. Australia’s complicity with Israel’s genocide and colonisation of Palestine can be countered by individuals, churches, unions, councils and students taking immediate and urgent BDS action.

Do not wait for Labor or Liberal politicians in this country to act, as they are doing their best to shut us down and to appease Israel. Their complicity will never be forgotten.

Cathy Peters is a former Greens councillor on the Marrickville Council from 2008-2011 and the co-founder of BDS Australia. She worked as a radio producer and executive producer for the ABC for 30 years making some documentaries on the Israeli occupation. She is Jewish and her grandparents and other relatives perished in the Holocaust. She has travelled to Gaza and throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories on a number of occasions and is a long-time advocate for Palestinian rights and justice. First published in the Australia social policy journal Pearls and Irritations and republished with permission.

A Palestine solidarity group has protested over the participation of Israeli tennis player Lina Glushko in New Zealand’s ASB Tennis Classic in Auckland today, saying such competition raises serious concerns about the normalisation of systemic oppression and apartheid.

The Palestine Forum of New Zealand said in a statement that by taking part in the event Glushko, a former Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) soldier, was sending a “troubling message that undermines the values of justice, equality, and human rights”.

In the past 15 months, Israel’s military has killed almost 45,500 people in the besieged enclave of Gaza, mostly women and children.

• READ MORE: Experts hail ICJ declaration on illegality of Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as ‘historic’ for Palestinians and international law
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

Pro-Palestine protest causes pause in play at ASB Classic, via @nzherald https://t.co/klzdZ4inCt

— Irish Sport for Palestine (@Sport4Palestine) December 30, 2024

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has declared the occupation of Palestine, including Gaza, illegal, and Israel should end settlements as soon as possible.

Since the court ruling in July, Israel has intensified attacks on the civilian population in Gaza and their natural resources and infrastructure, including hospitals and health clinics.

“Welcoming Israeli athletes to Aotearoa is not a neutral act. It normalises the systemic injustices perpetrated by the Israeli state against Palestinians,” said Maher Nazzal of the Palestine Forum.

“Just as the international sports community united to oppose South Africa’s apartheid in the 20th century, we must now stand firm against Israel’s ongoing violations of international law and human rights.”

Implements apartheid policies
He said former soldier Glushko symbolised a regime that:

• Implements apartheid policies: As documented by leading organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch;
• Operates under leadership accused of war crimes: With an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant issued against Israeli officials; and
• Continues its illegal occupation of Palestine: In direct violation of international law and countless United Nations resolutions.

The statement said: “While sports often aim to transcend politics, they cannot be isolated from the realities of injustice and oppression.

“By welcoming athletes representing an apartheid regime, we risk ignoring the voices of the oppressed and allowing sports to be used as a tool for whitewashing human rights abuses.

“We urge the international and local sports community to remain consistent in their principles by refusing to host representatives of regimes that perpetuate apartheid.

“The global boycott of South African athletes during apartheid proved that sports can be a powerful force for change. The same principle must apply today.”

RNZ News reports that vocal pro-Palestine protesters managed to halt sixth seed Naomi Osaka’s eventual win 6-4 6-4 over Israeli Lina Glushko today at the ASB Classic.

A group of about a dozen protesters caused the players to briefly leave the court, as the noise from a loudhailer and shouting disrupted the usual silence while the ball was in play.

For her part, Osaka seemed non-plussed, saying that she had “just heard a lot of shouting and then people on the sidelines were telling me there was a protest”.

There was a further delay shortly after when Glushko had to leave the arena for a medical timeout, causing further confusion.

Meanwhile, global news agencies and media widely reported the NZ protest against Israel’s genocide.

A New Zealand advocacy group for Palestine has condemned the government for refusing to provide humanitarian visas for Palestinians with family in the country while welcoming a growing number of Israeli “visitors”.

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) claims the visitors are likely to be “complicit” in Israel’s genocidal war crimes in the 14-month war on Gaza.

According to PSNA, just-released official Statistics Department figures show the number of Israelis who entered Aotearoa this past November (621) is more than twice the number of Israelis who came into the country in November last year (230).

• READ MORE: Amnesty International doubles down on Israeli Gaza ‘genocide, atrocities’ report at NZ rally
• Sixty patients at Gaza hospital at risk of starving, health authorities say
• Other Gaza genocide reports

The protest group said in a statement that “many if not most of these ‘tourists’ are actively serving in the Israeli Defence Force’s genocidal attacks on Gaza and Lebanon”.

“The United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and most recently Amnesty International, have variously described the Israeli attack on Gaza as genocide,” said PSNA national chair John Minto.

The New Zealand government had no idea how many Israeli “tourists” were doing military service, because they were not required to provide that information as they arrived, he added.

“Genocide duty in the Israeli armed forces is compulsory for nearly all Israelis, so there will be a high proportion of active or reservist soldiers coming to Aotearoa with blood on their hands.”

Urgent to deny entry
Service in the IDF for 32 months is compulsory for nearly all Israeli men when they reach 18 and women are required to serve 24 months.

Members of Israel’s ultra-orthodox community were included in the conscription from June after previously being exempt.

After the initial period, Israelis must be available as reservists until age 40.

PSNA’s John Minto said the New Zealand government must urgently deny entry to any Israelis who were serving or had served in the IDF.

“Combat reservists are now on average serving four months in the IDF. So it’s not just a narrow younger age group.”

According to Minto, the New Zealand government had a list of extremist Israeli settlers who it banned from entering Aotearoa — but he viewed this list as “hopelessly inadequate”.

Obligation to prevent genocide
“The International Court of Justice has obligated countries to prevent Israeli genocide and work to end Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territory,” Minto said.

“When our border immigration officials are not required to even ask if an Israeli is serving in the military, or is an illegal settler, then our government is ignoring both of its obligations.

“The soldiers perpetrating this genocide might pretend to be innocent thrill-seeking tourists when they visit here, but they are directly responsible for operating occupation, apartheid, genocide and ethnic cleansing.”

Vanuatu’s special envoy to climate change says their case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is based on the argument that those harming the climate are breaking international law.

The case seeks an advisory opinion from the court on the legal responsibilities of countries in relation to climate change, and dozens of countries are making oral submissions.

Hearings started in The Hague with Vanuatu — the Pacific island nation that initiated the effort to obtain a legal opinion — yesterday.

• READ MORE: ICJ begins hearings in landmark Pacific climate change case started by students
• Other ICJ climate lawsuit reports

Vanuatu’s Special Envoy for Climate Change and Environment  Ralph Regenvanu told RNZ Morning Report they are not just talking about countries breaking climate law.

He outlined their argument as: “This conduct — to do emissions which cause harm to the climate system, which harms other countries — is in fact a breach of international law, is unlawful, and the countries who do that should face legal consequences.”

He said they were wanting a line in the sand, even though any ruling from the court will be non-binding.

“We’re hoping for a new benchmark in international law which basically says if you pollute with cumulative global greenhouse gas emissions, you cause climate change, then you are in breach of international law,” he said.

“I think it will help clarify, for us, the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) process negotiations for example.”

Regenvanu said COP29 in Baku was frustrating, with high-emitting states still doing fossil fuel production and the development of new oil and coal fields.

What Vanuatu youth Vepaiamele Trief said… https://t.co/5cFNHhh5rd

— Ralph Regenvanu (@RRegenvanu) December 3, 2024

He said a ruling from the ICJ, though non-binding, will clearly say that “international law says you cannot do this”.

“So at least we’ll have something, sort of a line in the sand.”

Oral submissions to the court are expected to take two weeks.

Another Pacific climate change activist says at the moment there are no consequences for countries failing to meet their climate goals.

Pacific Community (SPC) director of climate change Coral Pasisi said a strong legal opinion from the ICJ might be able to hold polluting countries accountable for failing to reach their targets.

The court will decide on two questions:

• What are the obligations of states under international law to protect the climate and environment from greenhouse gas emissions?
• What are the legal consequences for states that have caused significant harm to the climate and environment?

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Despite being appalled at my government, I winced as a New Zealander to hear my country described as part of the “Axis of Genocide”. With increasing frequency I hear commentators on West Asia/Middle East news sites hold the collective West responsible for the genocide.

It’s a big come-down from the Global Labrador Puppy status New Zealand enjoyed recently.

Australia too has a record of being viewed as a country with soft-power influence, albeit while a stalwart deputy to the US in this part of the world. That is over.

• READ MORE: Israeli air strikes kill more than 100 across Gaza, Lebanon
• All in all, Trump’s election is a calamity in he making – Paul Buchanan
• Other Israeli war on Gaza reports

Professor Mohammad Seyed Marandi talks to Piers Morgan Uncensored. Video: Middle East Eye

Regrettably, Australia and New Zealand have sent troops to support US-Israel in the Red Sea (killing Yemeni people), failed to join the International Court of Justice (ICJ) case against Israel, shared intelligence with the Israelis, trained with their forces, provided R&R to soldiers fresh from the killing fields of Gaza while blocking Palestinian refugees, and extended valuable diplomatic support to Israel at the UN.

British planes overfly Gaza to provide data, a German freighter arrived in Alexandria this week laden with hundreds of thousands of kilograms of explosives to kill yet more Palestinian civilians.

Genocide is a collective effort of the Collective West.

Australia and New Zealand, along with the rest of the West, “will stand by the Israeli regime until they exterminate the last Palestinian”, says Professor Mohammad Seyed Marandi, an American-Iranian academic. What our governments do is at best “light condemnation” he says, but when it counts they will be silent.

‘They will allow extermination’
“They will allow the extermination of the people of Gaza. And then if the Israelis go after the West Bank, they will allow for that to happen as well. Under no circumstances do I see the West blocking extermination,” Marandi says.

Looking at our performance over the past seven decades and what is happening today, it is an assessment I would not argue against.

But why should we listen to someone from the Islamic Republic of Iran, you might ask. Who are they to preach at us?

I see things differently. In our dystopian, tightly-curated mainstream mediascape it is rare to hear an Iranian voice. We need to listen to more people, not fewer.

I’m definitely not a cheerleader for Iran or any state and I most certainly don’t agree with everything Professor Marandi says but he gives me richer insights than me just drowning in the endless propaganda of Tier One war criminals like Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu, Antony Blinken and their spokespeople.

Dr Marandi, professor of English literature and orientalism at the University of Tehran, is a former member of Iran’s negotiating team that brokered the break-through JCPOA nuclear agreement (later reneged on by the Trump and Biden administrations).

He is no shrinking violet. He has that fierceness of someone who has been shot at multiple times. A veteran of the Iran-Iraq War, Marandi was wounded four times, including twice with chemical weapons, key components of which were likely supplied by the US to their erstwhile ally Saddam Hussein.

Killed people he knew
Dr Marandi was in South Beirut a few weeks ago when the US-Israelis dropped dozens of bombs on residential buildings killing hundreds of civilians to get at the leader of Hezbollah (a textbook war crime that will never be prosecuted). It killed people he knew. To a BBC reporter who said, yes, but they were targeting Hezbollah, he replied:

“That’s like saying of 7/7 [the terror bombings in London]: ‘They bombed a British regime stronghold.’ How would that sound to people in the UK?”

Part of what people find discomforting about Dr Marandi is that he tears down the thin curtain that separates the centres of power from the major news outlets that repeat their talking points (“Israel has a legitimate right to self-defence” etc).

The more our leaders and media prattle on about Israel’s right to defend itself, the more we sound like the Germany that terrorised Europe in the 1930s and 40s. And the rest of the world has noticed.

As TS Eliot said: “Nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of oneself.”

Not a man to mince words when it comes to war crimes.

To his credit, Piers Morgan is one of the few who have invited Dr Marandi to do an extended interview. They had a verbal cage fight that went viral.

Masterful over pointing out racism
Dr Marandi has been masterful at pointing out the racism inherent in the Western worldview, the chauvinism that allows Western minds to treasure white lives but discount as worthless hundreds of thousands of Muslim lives taken in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere.

“There is no reason to expect that a declining and desperate empire will conduct itself in a civilised manner. Iran is prepared for the worst,” he says.

“In this great moral struggle, in the world that we live in today — meaning the holocaust in Gaza — who is defending the people of Gaza and who is supporting the holocaust? Iran with its small group of allies is alone against the West,” he told Nima Alkhorshid from Dialogue Works recently.

The Collective West shares collective responsibility.

Dr Marandi draws a sharp distinction between our governments and our populations. He is entirely right in pointing out that the younger people are, in countries like Australia and New Zealand, the more likely they are to oppose the genocide — as do growing numbers of young Jewish Americans who have rejected the Zionist project.

“All people within the whole of Palestine must be equal — Jews, Muslims and Christians. The Islamic Republic of Iran will not allow the US, EU, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the Zionist regime to exterminate the Palestinians of Gaza.”

I heard Mohammad Seyed Marandi extend an interesting invitation to us all in a recent interview. He said the “Axis of Resistance” should be thought of as open to all people who oppose the genocide in Gaza and who are opposed to continued Western militarism in West Asia.

I would never sign up to the policies of Iran, especially on issues like women’s rights, but I do find the invitation to a broad coalition clarifying: the Axis of Genocide versus The Axis of Resistance. Whose side are you on?

Eugene Doyle is a community organiser and activist in Wellington, New Zealand. He received an Absolutely Positively Wellingtonian award in 2023 for community service. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam War. This article was first published at his public policy website Solidarity and is republished here with permission.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society leading the global BDS movement, has called for immediate pressure on all states to support the updated resolution tabled at the UN General Assembly calling for sanctions on Israel.

The resolution is aimed at enacting the July 2024 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) about the illegality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory and its violation of the prohibition of apartheid under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).

A vote is expected tomorrow.

• READ MORE: Katz threatens to ‘break and dissolve’ PA if it pushes UN resolution against Israel
• UN likely to vote on push to end Israel presence in Palestinian territory
• Israel has killed over 11,000 students in Gaza, West Bank: Ministry

This resolution, a diluted version of an earlier draft, falls below the bare minimum of the legal obligations of states to implement the ICJ ruling, undoubtedly a result of intense bullying and intimidation by the colonial West — led by the US and Israel’s partners in the ongoing Gaza genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians.

By relegating ending the Gaza genocide to an afterthought, the resolution ignores its utmost urgency.

Despite such obvious failure, the resolution does call for:

• Ending Israel’s illegal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, within 12 months;
• Ending states’ complicity in aiding or maintaining this occupation by imposing trade and military sanctions such as “ceasing the importation of any products originating in the Israeli settlements, as well as the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment” to Israel. In April 2024, the UN Human Rights Council called for an embargo on “the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel, the occupying Power;”
• Preventing, prohibiting and eradicating Israel’s violations of article 3 of CERD identified in the advisory opinion, regarding apartheid;
• Imposing sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against individuals and entities engaged in the maintenance of Israel’s unlawful occupation.

Step in right direction
Limited in scope to addressing a mere subset of Palestinian rights, the resolution does not, indeed cannot, legally or morally prejudice the other rights of the Indigenous people of Palestine, particularly the right of our refugees since the 1948 Nakba to return and receive reparations and the right of the Palestinian people, including those who are citizens of apartheid Israel, to liberation from settler-colonialism and apartheid.

Supporting this resolution would therefore be only a step in the right direction. It cannot absolve states of their legal and moral obligations to end all complicity with Israel’s regime of oppression.

Meaningful targeted sanctions by states and inter-state groups (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Arab League, African Union etc.) remain absolutely necessary to stop Israel’s genocide and end its occupation and apartheid.

Failing to do so would further shatter international law’s credibility and relevance to the global majority.

Dozens of UN human rights experts have confirmed that the ICJ ruling “has finally reaffirmed a principle that seemed unclear, even to the United Nations: Freedom from foreign military occupation, racial segregation and apartheid is absolutely non-negotiable”.

The ruling in effect affirms that BDS is not just a right but also “an obligation,” and it constitutes a paradigm shift from one centered on “negotiations” between oppressor and oppressed to one centered on accountability, sanctions and enforcement to end the system of oppression and to uphold the inalienable, internationally recognised rights of the Palestinian people.

States must be pressured
To sincerely implement the ICJ ruling on the occupation and fulfil the legal obligations triggered by the court’s earlier finding that Israel is plausibly perpetrating genocide in Gaza, and in line with the demands by UN human rights experts, all states must be pressured to immediately:

• Impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, including the export, import, shipping and transit of military and dual-use items, military cooperation, and academic and industrial research;
• Impose sanctions on trade, finance, travel, technology and cooperation with Israel;
• “Review all diplomatic, political, and economic ties with Israel, inclusive of business and finance, pension funds, academia and charities,” as stated by UN experts, to ensure an end to all complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation;
• Impose an embargo on oil, coal and other energy exports to Israel;
• Declare support for suspending apartheid Israel’s membership in the UN, as apartheid South Africa was suspended;
• Take immediate actions to ensure that their economic relationship with Israel and the activities of corporations domiciled in their territories do not breach their duty to prevent and to not be complicit in genocide and are not complicit in Israel’s commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity; and
• Reaffirm the right of Palestinian refugees to return, as per UNGA Resolution 194, and fully support UNRWA until this right can be exercised.

You could be forgiven if you missed the recent International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion that Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestine is illegal.

The landmark ruling sank without trace in Aotearoa New Zealand and aside from an anaemic tweet from the Minister of Foreign Affairs has barely caused a ripple in official circles.

However, the court’s July 19 decision is a watershed in holding Israel to account for its numerous breaches of international law and United Nations resolutions and while western governments prefer to look the other way, this is no longer tenable.

• READ MORE: ICJ says Israel’s presence in Palestinian territory is unlawful
• Other Israeli War on Palestine reports
• This weekend’s rallies for Palestine protesting over NZ ‘complicity’

The ICJ has found not only that Israel’s 57-year occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal but that BDS (Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions) are an obligation on governments to impose on Israel.

The wording is unambiguous. The ICJ says:

“The State of Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful [and it] is under an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence . . .  as rapidly as possible.”

And goes on to say:

“All States are under an obligation not to recognise as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the [Occupied Palestinian Territory] and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by the continued presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

NZ government must reevaluate
Not rendering “aid or assistance” to Israel to continue its illegal occupation means the New Zealand government must re-evaluate its entire relationship with Israel.

For a start government investments in companies profiting from Israel’s illegal occupation must be withdrawn; imports or procurement of services from companies in the illegally-occupied Palestinian territories must be stopped and visas for young Israelis coming to New Zealand after serving in support of Israel’s illegal occupation must cease.

A host of other government policies to impose BDS sanctions against Israel must follow — the type of sanctions we imposed against Russia for its invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine.

This ICJ ruling comes as western governments such as New Zealand shamefully provide political cover for Israel’s illegal occupation and wholesale slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. Most of the victims are women and children.

By April Israel had dropped over 70,000 tonnes of bombs on Gaza, surpassing the bombing of Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined during World War II, in one of the most densely populated areas in the world.

Israel has killed the equivalent of all the children in more than 100 average sized New Zealand primary schools and yet our Prime Minister has refused to condemn this slaughter, refused to call for an immediate, permanent ceasefire or join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Our Prime Minister describes the situation in Gaza as catastrophic but refuses to utter a single word of condemnation of Israel. Mr Luxon has replaced principled political action with bluff and bluster.

Widening chasm with international law
The gap between what our government does and what international law demands is a widening chasm.

Gaza exists as an illegally occupied and densely populated area because Israeli militias conducted a massive ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from 1947 to 1949 to artificially create a majority Jewish state on Palestinian land.

Eighty percent of Gazans are descendants of the victims of this ethnic cleansing.

Under cover of its war on Gaza, Israel’s ethnic cleansing continues today in the occupied West Bank. Illegal Israeli settlers, with the backing of Israeli Occupation Forces are driving Palestinians off their land.

Numerous Palestinian towns and rural communities have been attacked in pogroms with arson, looting and killing leaving “depopulated” areas behind for Israel to settle.

There are now more than 700,000 illegal Israeli settlers in more than 200 settlements and settlement outposts on Palestinian land in the occupied territories of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

700,000 settlers declared illegal
It is these settlers and settlements the International Court of Justice has declared illegal.

As well as responsibilities on individual states to end support for Israel’s illegal occupation, the ICJ ruling says the world should take collective action requesting “The UN, and especially the General Assembly . . .  and the Security Council, should consider the precise modalities and further action required to bring to an end as rapidly as possible the unlawful presence of the State of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

New Zealand must regain its moral courage and become a leader in helping end the longest-running military occupation in modern history.

John Minto is national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). This article was first published by The Daily Blog and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

Dear TVNZ,

We are deeply concerned with the misleading nature of the journalism presented in your recent coverage of the escalating crisis in Gaza and the West Bank. By focusing on specific language and framing, while leaving out the necessary context of international law, the broadcast misrepresents the reality of the situation faced by Palestinians.

This has the effect of perpetuating a narrative that could be seen and experienced as biased and dehumanising.

The International Court of Justice’s ruling on January 26, 2024, mandated that Israel prevent its forces from committing acts of genocide against Palestinians and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza.

• READ MORE: Aotearoa: NZ news media under fire for ‘bias, propaganda’ in Gaza coverage
• Appalling NZ mainstream media reporting on Palestine continues – John Minto
• Israel’s war on Gaza live: Eight killed in Israeli attack on school sheltering displaced Palestinians

This ruling highlights the severity of Israel’s actions and the international community’s obligation to hold those responsible accountable. However, TVNZ’s coverage has often failed to reflect this legal and humanitarian perspective.

Instead it echos biased narratives that obscure these realities. This includes the expansion of genocidal like acts to the West Bank and the serious concerns about the potential for mass ethnic cleansing and further escalation of grave human rights violations.

Under international law, including the Genocide Convention, media organisations have a crucial responsibility to report accurately and avoid inciting violence or supporting those committing genocidal acts.

Complicity in genocide can occur when media coverage supports or justifies the actions of perpetrators, contributing to the dehumanisation of victims and the perpetuation of violence. By failing to provide balanced reporting and instead contributing to harmful stereotypes and misinformation, TVNZ risks being complicit in these grave violations of human rights.

Tragic history of attacks
New Zealand’s own tragic history of attacks on Muslims, such as the Al Noor Mosque shootings, should serve as a powerful reminder of the consequences of dehumanising narratives. The media plays a pivotal role in shaping public perception, and it is deeply concerning to see TVNZ contributing to the marginalisation and demonisation of Muslims and Palestinians through biased reporting.

We urge you to review your coverage of the genocide to ensure that it is fair, balanced, and aligned with international law and journalistic ethics. Specific examples of biased reporting include recent stories on Gaza that failed to mention the ICJ ruling or the context of an illegal occupation.

This includes decades of systematic land confiscation, military control, restrictions on movement, and the suppression of Palestinian voices through media censorship and the shutdown of local newspapers. Accurate and responsible journalism is essential in fostering an informed and empathetic public, especially on matters as sensitive and impactful as this.

On August 29, 2024, TVNZ aired a news story that exemplifies problematic media framing when reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The story begins by benignly describing Israel’s “entry into the West Bank” as part of a “counter-terrorism strike”— the largest operation in 10 years — implying that the context is solely anti-terrorism.

Automatically, the use of the word terrorism, sets the narrative of “good Israel” and “bad Palestinian” for the remainder of the news story.  However, the report fails to mention numerous critical aspects, such as the provocations by Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visiting the Al-Aqsa Mosque and threatening to build a synagogue at Islam’s third holiest site, or Israel’s escalations and violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The Convention considers the transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population into the territory it occupies a war crime, and under international law, Palestinians have the right to resist such occupation, a right recognised and protected by international legal frameworks.

The story uses footage, presumably provided by the IDF, that portrays the Israeli military as a calm, moral force entering “terrorist strongholds”, which is at odds with abundant open-source footage showing the IDF destroying infrastructure, terrorising civilians, and protecting armed settlers as they displace Palestinians from their homes.

Bulldozers used to destroy Palestinian homes
It portrays the IDF entering the town with bulldozers, but makes no mention of how those bulldozers are used to destroy Palestinian homes and infrastructure to make way for Israeli settlements.

Furthermore, the report fails to mention that just last month, the Israeli government announced its plans to officially recognise five more illegal settlements in the West Bank and expand existing settlements, understandably exacerbating tensions.

The narrative is further reinforced by giving airtime to an Israeli spokesperson who frames the operation as a defensive counter-terrorism initiative. The journalist echoes this narrative, positioning Israel as merely responding to threats.

Although a brief soundbite from a Palestinian Red Crescent worker expresses fears of what might happen in the West Bank, the report fails to provide any counter-narrative to Israel’s self-defence claim.

The story concludes by listing the number of deaths in the West Bank since October 19, implying that the situation began with Hamas’s actions in Gaza on that date, rather than addressing the illegal Israeli occupation since 1967, as the root cause of the violence.

Why is this important?
The news story is a violation of the Accuracy and Impartiality Standard with TVNZ failing to present a balanced view of the situation in Palestine, potentially misleading the audience on critical aspects of the conflict.

Secondly, the news story violates  the Harm and Offence Standard, being an insufficient and inflammatory portrayal of the genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine contributing to public misperception and harm.

Additionally, there is a concern regarding the Fairness Standard, with individuals and groups affected by the conflict not being given fair opportunity to respond or be represented in the broadcast.

These breaches are significant as they undermine the integrity of the reporting and fail to uphold the standards of responsible journalism. Holding our media outlets to high journalistic standards is essential, particularly in the context of the genocide in Gaza.

The media plays a significant part in either exposing or obscuring the realities of such atrocities. When news outlets fail to report accurately or neglect to label the situation in Gaza as genocide, they contribute to a narrative that minimises the severity of the crisis and enables and prolongs Israel’s social license to continue it’s genocidal actions.

Should there be no substantial changes to address our concerns,  we will escalate this matter to the Broadcasting Standards Authority for further review.

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A leading peace campaigner is calling Aotearoa New Zealand’s decision to stay away from a peace event in Nagasaki paying tribute to victims of the Japanese city’s 1945 nuclear bombing “outrageous”.

Former trade union leader Robert Reid said New Zealand could have acted as a strong independent Pacific voice by attending today’s peace gathering, held annually on August 9 to commemorate the estimated 70,000 people killed in a US nuclear attack on the Japanese city at the end of World War II.

“New Zealand has missed an opportunity to demarcate itself from the cheerleaders of the Gaza genocide, from the US and the UK and other Western countries, and in a way has turned its back on Japan, which was an ally with us in the anti-nuclear position that New Zealand has held for many years,” the former Unite president said.

• READ MORE: Other nuclear-free protest reports

His comments come after a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Mfat) spokesperson confirmed to In Context neither New Zealand’s ambassador to Japan Hamish Hooper nor any other consulate official would be attending the peace ceremony, stressing the move was due to “resourcing” and unrelated to a boycott by Western nations following the city’s decision not to invite Israel.

The US and its Western allies are staying away from the peace ceremony because Nagasaki’s Mayor Shiro Suzuki declined to send an invitation to Israel to attend, over events in the Middle East and to avoid protests against the war in Gaza at the event.

In a statement a Mfat spokesperson said: “The New Zealand government will not be represented at the commemorations at Nagasaki on 9 August 2024. This decision reflects limited resourcing of the Embassy in Tokyo, and is not associated with attendance of other countries.”

However, it is understood New Zealand was represented at a commemoration event at head of mission level in Hiroshima last Tuesday. Nagasaki is located south of Hiroshima and a journey three-and-a-half hours by train.

Cancelled last year
The Nagasaki commemoration was cancelled last year due to a typhoon warning. New Zealand had been represented at both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki events in recent years, at head of mission level in 2022 and 2021.

It only attended the Hiroshima commemoration in 2020, a period when covid-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions were widespread.

New Zealand’s absence comes after envoys of the US, Canada, Germany, France, the UK and other Western nations sent a letter to Nagasaki organisers expressing concern over the city not inviting Israel.

The letter, dated July 19, warned that if Israel was excluded, “it would become difficult for us to have high-level participation” in the event as it would “result in placing Israel on the same level as countries such as Russia and Belarus,” both having been excluded from the ceremony since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In a statement on July 31 outlining the reasons for excluding Israel, Suzuki said officials feared protests against Israel’s actions in Gaza would take away the ceremony’s solemnity.

He added that he made the decision based on “various developments in the international community in response to the ongoing situation in the Middle East”.

ICJ ruled Israel as apartheid state
An International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on July 19 ruled Israel’s occupation of Palestine illegal and that Israel was administering a system of apartheid through discriminatory laws and policies. Apartheid is a crime against humanity.

In a 14-1 ruling, the ICJ directed Israel to immediately cease all settlement activity, evacuate settlers from occupied Palestinian territories, and pay reparations to Palestinians. It also voted 12-3 that UN states not render aid or assistance to Israel to continue the illegal occupation.

On July 30, the UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner said in light of the ruling: “States must immediately review all diplomatic, political, and economic ties with Israel, inclusive of business and finance, pension funds, academia and charities.”

There were protests on Wednesday following a decision by the Hiroshima municipality to allow Israeli representation at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park event the day before, while not inviting a Palestinian envoy on the basis that the occupied country was not a United Nations member and that Japan did not recognise it as a state.

“I understand New Zealand is not calling its absence a boycott, but just that it’s too busy, but it has attended in the past,” Read said.

“I think we’re just playing with words here. This was a chance for New Zealand to stand with the people of Palestine, to stand with the Japanese people, who have had bombs dropped on them and they have perhaps taken a weak way out by not attending.”

The Disarmament and Security Centre Aotearoa is holding a Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemoration event on Sunday, August 11, at Christchurch’s Botanic Gardens.

Virtual centre
The non-profit organisation is a virtual centre connecting disarmament experts, lawyers, political scientists, academics, teachers, students and disarmament proponents.

Its spokesperson, Dr Marcus Coll, said he was shocked New Zealand would not be attending the Nagasaki event this year.

“These sorts of things should never be about resources because it’s the symbolism of it that is so important and actually showing solidarity with the victims of Nagasaki,” he said.

“In the Pacific region especially, we’ve really felt the effects of nuclear testing throughout the decades and then in Japan, there still are a lot of the survivors and their families are affected because of the intergenerational effects.”

Dr Coll spent seven years studying and working in Japan. His doctoral research involved interviewing and researching survivors of the atomic bombings, as well as indigenous rights activists, religious and military leaders, peace campaigners, and others who were instrumental in shaping New Zealand’s nuclear free identity.

He said Japan’s survivors had expressed awe at a small country in the Pacific taking a strong stand against nuclear weapons.

“New Zealand has really been a kind of a beacon of hope for a lot of those people,” he said.

Nuclear-free legacy
New Zealand became a nuclear-free country in 1987, with a Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act that effectively banned US nuclear vessels from its waters.

It led to New Zealand being frozen out of the ANZUS security treaty and allowed the country to develop a more independent policy engagement with the Pacific and the rest of the world.

“That came from the government level as well,” Dr Coll said.

“It was a groundswell from the public, which changed our policy, but governments of all stripes up until recently have really not contested that legacy and actually been kind of proud of it.

“It really is something that sets us apart, especially internationally and we’re respected for it . . . So, it seems like a real let down that our own government can’t even show up.”

Dr Coll said New Zealand had nurtured a significant link with Nagasaki, being the last place to suffer a nuclear attack in warfare.

“Our former director used to go to Nagasaki. She had very strong connections with the mayor there. There’s actually a sculpture in the Nagasaki Peace Park, given to the city on behalf of New Zealand cities and the New Zealand government back in 2000s, forging that strong connection.

“It’s called the Korowai of Peace. Phil Goff as foreign minister, the New Zealand ambassador and other civil society people were there . . .  This decision I suspect is a kind of PR and not to attend is a blow to our heritage of promoting disarmament and being anti-nuclear.”

The US envoy to Japan Rahm Emanuel is expected to attend a peace ceremony at the Zojoji Temple in Tokyo on Friday instead.

Nagasaki was bombed by the United States on August 9, 1945, after Hiroshima had been hit by atomic bomb on August 6. The two attacks at the end of World War II killed up to 250,000 people. Japan surrendered on August 15.

Republished from Mick Hall In Context with permission.

ANALYSIS: By Ilan Pappé

“When we revolt, it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.”

— Franz Fanon

Since the 1948 Nakba and arguably before, Palestine has not seen levels of violence as high as those experienced since October 7, 2023. But we need to address how this violence is being situated, treated, and judged.

Indeed, mainstream media often portrays Palestinian violence as terrorism while depicting Israeli violence as self-defence. Rarely is Israeli violence labelled excessive.

• READ MORE: At least 30 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on two schools in Gaza
• Other Israeli War on Gaza reports

Meanwhile, international legal institutions hold both sides equally responsible for this violence, which they classify as war crimes.

Both perspectives are flawed. The first perspective wrongly differentiates between the “immoral” and “unjustified” violence of Palestinians and Israel’s “right to defend itself.”

The second perspective, which assigns blame to both sides, provides a misguided and ultimately harmful framework for understanding the current situation — likely the most violent chapter in Palestine’s modern history.

And all of these perspectives overlook the crucial context necessary to understand the violence that erupted on October 7.

This is not merely a conflict between two violent parties, nor is it simply a clash between a terrorist organisation and a state defending itself.

Rather, it represents a chapter in the ongoing decolonisation of historic Palestine, which began in 1929 and continues today. Only in the future will we know whether October 7 marked an early stage in this decolonisation process or one of its final phases.

Throughout history, decolonisation has been a violent process, and the violence of decolonisation has not been confined to one side only. Apart from a few exceptions where very small, colonised islands were evicted “voluntarily” by colonial empires, decolonisation has not been a pleasant consensual affair by which colonisers end decades, if not centuries, of oppression.

But for this to be our entry point to discuss Hamas, Israel, and the various positions held towards them in the world, one has to acknowledge the colonialist nature of Zionism and therefore recognise the Palestinian resistance as an anti-colonialist struggle — a framework negated totally by American administrations and other Western countries since the birth of Zionism, and so therefore also by other Western countries.

Framing the conflict as a struggle between the colonisers and the colonised helps detect the origin of the violence and shows that there is no effective way of stopping it without addressing its origins.

The root of the violence in Palestine is the evolvement of Zionism in the late 19th century into a settler colonial project.

Like previous settler colonial projects, the main violent impulse of the movement — and later the state that was established — was and is to eliminate the indigenous population. When elimination is not achieved by violence, the solution is always to use more extraordinary violence.

Therefore, the only scenario in which a settler colonial project can end its violent treatment of the indigenous people is when it ends or collapses. Its inability to achieve the absolute elimination of the native population will not deter it from constantly attempting to do so through an incremental policy of elimination or genocide.

The anti-colonial impulse, or propensity, to employ violence is existential — unless we believe that human beings prefer to live as occupied or colonised people.

The colonisers have an option not to colonise or eliminate but rarely cease from doing so without being forced to by the violence of the colonised or by outside pressure from external powers.

Indeed, as is in the case of Israel and Palestine, the best way to avoid violence and counter-violence is to force the settler colonial project to cease through pressure from the outside.

The historical record is worth recollecting to give credence to our claim that the violence of Israel must be judged differently — in moral and political terms — from that of the Palestinians.

This, however, does not mean that condemnation for violation of international law can only be directed towards the coloniser; of course not.

It is an analysis of the history of violence in historical Palestine that contextualises the events of October 7 and the genocide in Gaza and indicates a way to end it.

The history of violence in Modern Palestine: 1882-2000
The arrival of the first group of Zionist settlers in Palestine in 1882 was not, by itself, the first act of violence. The violence of the settlers was epistemic, meaning that the violent removal of the Palestinians by the settlers had already been written about, imagined, and coveted upon their arrival in Palestine — debunking the infamous “land without people” myth.

To translate the imagined removal into reality, the Zionist movement had to wait for the occupation of Palestine by Britain in 1918.

A few years later in the mid-1920s, with assistance from the British mandatory government, 11 villages were ethnically cleansed following the purchase of the regions Marj Ibn Amer and Wadi Hawareth by the Zionist movement from absentee landlords in Beirut and a landowner in Jaffa.

This had never happened before in Palestine. Landowners, whoever they were, did not evict villages that had been there for centuries since Ottoman law enabled land transactions.

This was the origin and the first act of systemic violence in the attempt to dispossess the Palestinians.

Another form of violence was the strategy of “Hebrew Labour” meant to drive out Palestinians from the labour market. This strategy, and the ethnic cleansing, pauperised the Palestinian countryside, leading to forced emigration to towns that could not provide work or proper housing.

It was only in 1929, when these violent actions were coupled with a discourse on constructing a third temple in place of Haram al-Sharif, that the Palestinians responded with violence for the first time.

This was not a coordinated response, but a spontaneous and desperate one against the bitter fruits of the Zionist colonisation of Palestine.

Seven years later, when Britain permitted more settlers to arrive and supported the formation of a nascent Zionist state with its own army, the Palestinians launched a more organised campaign.

This was the first uprising, lasting three years (1936-1939), known as the Arab Revolt. During this period, the Palestinian elite finally recognised Zionism as an existential threat to Palestine and its people.

The main Zionist paramilitary group collaborating with the British army in quelling the revolt was known as the Haganah, meaning “The Defence,” and hence the Israeli narrative to depict any act of aggression against Palestinians as self-defence — a concept reflected in the name of the Israeli army, the Israel Defence Forces.

From the British Mandate period to today, this military power was used to take over land and markets. It was deployed as a “defence” force against the attacks of the anti-colonialist movement and as such was not different from any other coloniser in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The difference is that in most instances of modern history where colonialism has come to an end, the actions of the colonisers are now viewed retrospectively as acts of aggression rather than self-defence.

The great Zionist success has been to commodify their aggression as self-defence and the Palestinian armed struggle as terrorism. The British government, at least until 1948, regarded both acts of violence as terrorism but allowed the worst violence to take place against the Palestinians in 1948 when it watched the first stage of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.

Between December 1947 and May 1948, when Britain was still responsible for law and order, the Zionist forces urbicided, that is obliterated, the main towns of Palestine and the villages around it. This was more than terror; this was a crime against humanity.

After completing the second stage of the ethnic cleansing between May and December 1948, through the most violent means that Palestine has witnessed for centuries, half of Palestine’s population was forcefully expelled, half of its villages destroyed, as well as most of its towns.

Israeli historians would later claim that “the Arabs” wanted to throw the Jews into the sea. The only people who were literally thrown into the sea — and drowned — were those expelled by the Zionist forces in Jaffa and Haifa.

Israeli violence continued after 1948 but was answered sporadically by Palestinians in an attempt to build a liberation movement.

It began with refugees trying to retrieve what was left of their husbandry and crops in the fields, later accompanied by Fedayeen attacking military installations and civilian places. It only gelled into a significant enterprise in 1968, when the Fatah Movement took over the Arab League’s PLO.

The pattern before 1967 is familiar — the dispossessed used violence in their struggle, but on a limited scale, while the Israeli army retaliated with overwhelming, indiscriminate violence, such as the massacre of the village of Qibya in October 1953 where Ariel Sharon’s unit 101 murdered 69 Palestinian villagers, many of them blown up within their own homes.

No group of Palestinians have been spared from Israeli violence. Those who became Israeli citizens were subjected, until 1966, to the most violent form of oppression: military rule. This system routinely employed violence against its subjects, including abuse, house demolitions, arbitrary arrests, banishment, and killings. Among these atrocities was the Kafr Qassem massacre in October 1956, where Israeli border police killed 49 Palestinian villagers.

This same violent system was transited to the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip after the June 1967 War. For 19 years, the violence of the occupation was tolerated by the occupied until the mostly non-violent First Intifada in December 1987. Israel responded with brutality and violence that left 1,200 Palestinians dead, 300 of them children — 120,000 were injured and 1,800 homes were demolished. 180 Israelis were killed.

The pattern here continued — an occupied people, disillusioned with their own leadership and the indifference of the region and the world, rose in a non-violent revolt, only to be met with the full, brutal force of the coloniser and occupier.

Another pattern also emerges. The Intifada triggered a renewed interest in Palestine — as has the Hamas attack on October 7 — and produced a “peace process”, the Oslo Accords that raised the hopes of ending the occupation but instead, it provided immunity to the occupier to continue its occupation.

The frustration led, inevitably, to a more violent uprising in October 2000. It also shifted popular support from those leaders who still put their faith in the diplomatic way of ending occupation to those who were willing to continue the armed struggle against it — the political Islamic groups.

Violence in 21st century Palestine
Hamas and Islamic Jihad enjoy great support because of their choice of continuing to fight the occupation, not because of their theocratic vision of a future Caliphate or their particular wish to make the public space more religious.

The horrific pendulum continued. The Second Intifada was met by a more brutal Israeli response.

For the first time, Israel used F-16 bombers and Apache helicopters against the civilian population, alongside battalions of tanks and artillery that led to the 2002 Jenin massacre.

The brutality was directed from above to compensate for the humiliating withdrawal from southern Lebanon forced upon the Israeli army by Hezbollah in the summer of 2000 — the Second Intifada broke out in October 2000.

The direct violence against the occupied people from 2000 took also the form of intensive colonisation and Judaisation of the West Bank and Greater Jerusalem area.

This campaign was translated into the expropriation of Palestinian lands, encircling the Palestinian areas with apartheid walls, and giving a free license to the settlers to perpetrate attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territories and East Jerusalem.

In 2005, Palestinian civil society tried to offer the world a different kind of struggle through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement – a non-violent struggle based on a call to the international community to put a stop to the Israeli colonialist violence, which has not been heeded, so far, by governments.

Instead, Israeli brutality on the ground increased and the Gaza resistance in particular fought back resiliently to the point that forced Israel to evict its settlers and soldiers from there in 2005.

However, the withdrawal did not liberate the Gaza Strip, it transformed from being a colonised space into becoming a killing field in which a new form of violence was introduced by Israel.

The colonising power moved from ethnic cleansing to genocide in its attempt to deal with the Palestinian refusal, in particular in the Gaza Strip, to live as a colonised people in the 21st century.

Since 2006, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have used violence in response to what they view as ongoing genocide by Israel against the people of the Gaza Strip. This violence has also been directed at the civilian population in Israel.

Western politicians and journalists often overlooked the indirect and long-term catastrophic effects of these policies on the Gaza population, including the destruction of health infrastructure and the trauma experienced by the 2.2 million people living in the Gaza ghetto.

As it did in 1948, Israel alleges that all its actions are defensive and retaliatory in response to Palestinian violence. In essence, however, Israeli actions since 2006 have not been retaliatory.

Israel initiated violent operations driven by the wish to continue the incomplete 1948 ethnic cleansing that left half of Palestinians inside historic Palestine and millions of others on Palestine’s borders. The eliminatory policies, as brutal as they were, were not successful in this respect; the desperate bouts of Palestinian resistance have instead been used as a pretext to complete the elimination project.

And the cycle continues. When Israel elected an extreme right-wing government in November 2022, Israeli violence was not restricted to Gaza. It appeared everywhere in historical Palestine. In the West Bank, the escalating violence from soldiers and settlers led to incremental ethnic cleansing, particularly in the southern Hebron mountains and the Jordan Valley. This resulted in an increase in killings, including those of teenagers, as well as a rise in arrests without trial.

Since November 2022, a different form of violence has plagued the Palestinian minority living in Israel. This community faces daily terror from criminal gangs that clash with each other, resulting in the murder of one or two community members each day. The police often ignore these issues. Some of these gangs include former collaborators with the occupation who were relocated to Palestinian areas following the Oslo agreement and maintain connections with the Israeli secret service.

Additionally, the new government has exacerbated tensions around the Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound, permitting more frequent and aggressive incursions into the Haram al-Sharif by politicians, police, and settlers.

It is too difficult to know yet whether there was a clear strategy behind the Hamas attack on October 7, or whether it went according to plan or not, whatever that plan may be. However, 17 years under Israeli blockade and the particularly violent Israeli government of November 2022 added to their determination to try a more drastic and daring form of anti-colonialist struggle for liberation.

Whatever we think about October 7, and we do not have yet a full picture, it was part of a liberation struggle. We may raise both moral questions about Hamas’ actions as well as questions of efficacy; liberation struggles throughout history have had their moments when one could raise such questions and even criticism.

But we cannot forget the source of violence that forced the pastoral people of Palestine after 120 years of colonisation to adopt armed struggle alongside non-violent methods.

On July 19, 2024, the International Court of Justice issued a significant ruling regarding the status of the West Bank, which went largely unnoticed. The court affirmed that the Gaza Strip is organically connected to the West Bank, and therefore, under international law, Israel remains the occupying power in Gaza. This means that actions against Israel by the people of Gaza are considered part of their right to resist occupation.

Once again, under the guise of retaliation and revenge, Israeli violence following October 7 bears the marks of its previous exploitation of cycles of violence.

This includes using genocide as a means to address Israel’s “demographic” issue — essentially, how to control the land of historical Palestine without its Palestinian inhabitants. By 1967, Israel had taken all of historical Palestine, but the demographic reality thwarted the goal of complete dispossession.

Ironically, Israel established the Gaza Strip in 1948 as a receptor for hundreds of thousands of refugees, “willing” to concede 2% of historical Palestine to remove a significant number of Palestinians expelled by its army during the Nakba.

This particular refugee camp has proven more challenging to Israel’s plans to de-Arabize Palestine than any other area, due to the resilience and resistance of its people.

Any attempt to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza must be made in two ways. First, immediate action is needed to stop the violence through a ceasefire and, ideally, international sanctions on Israel. Second, it is crucial to prevent the next phase of the genocide, which could target the West Bank. This requires the continuation and intensification of the global solidarity movement’s campaign to pressure governments and policymakers into compelling Israel to end its genocidal policies.

Since the late 19th century and the arrival of Zionism in Palestine, the impulse of the Palestinians has not been about violence or revenge. The impulse remains the return to normal and natural life, a right that has been denied to the Palestinians for more than a century, not only by Zionism and Israel but by the powerful alliance that allowed and immunised the project of the dispossession of Palestine.

This is not a wish to romanticise or idealise Palestinian society. It was, and would continue to be, a typical society in a region where tradition and modernity often coexist in a complex relationship, and where collective identities can sometimes lead to divisions, especially when external forces seek to exploit these differences.

However, pre-Zionist Palestine was a place where Muslims, Christians, and Jews coexisted peacefully, and where most people experienced violence only rarely — likely less frequently than in many parts of the Global North.

Violence as a permanent and massive aspect of life can only be removed when its source is removed. In the case of Palestine, it is the ideology and praxis of the Israeli settler state, not the existential struggle of the colonised Palestinian people.

Ilan Pappé is an Israeli historian and socialist activist. He is a professor of history at the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director of the university’s European Centre for Palestine Studies, and co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies. He is also the author of the bestselling The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld) and many other books. Republished with permission by the author from The New Arab.

Former New Zealand attorney-general David Parker spoke on day 295 of Israel’ genocidal war on Gaza in Auckland today, condemning the National-led government’s inaction over the ongoing crisis.

Responding to the recent International Court of Justice’s landmark advisory ruling that Israel’s occupation of Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem — Occupied Palestine — was illegal and must end as soon as possible, Parker said he was disappointed in New Zealand’s “equivocal” response.

He also called on the government to recognise the state of Palestine, along with some 145 countries around the world that have already done so.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live — at least 66 killed across Gaza in past 24 hours
• Anzac massacre: The story of Surafend
• Other Israel’s war on Gaza reports

Parker described the enthusiastic response to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the US Congress this week — at a time when the International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor is seeking an arrest warrant accusing him of war crimes — “shameful”.

“I was appalled at the reception that Netanyahu was given in America . . .”

Cries of “shame” from the crowd greeted his words.

“. . . I agree that was shameful.

Applauding of Netanyahu ‘appalling’
“It was appalling that he was lauded the way that he was by the American parliament.

“It is a shame that the New Zealand government does not recognise Palestine.

“The Labour Party has called for the recognition of Palestine.”

The ICJ advisory judgment also ruled that Israel was an apartheid state.

This case was separate from the genocide one brought by South Africa against Israel in January which is still before the court.

A large banner at the rally illustrated the massive global support for Palestine statehood, with a map showing the main countries that have not supported recognition to be the white English-speaking settler colonial nations such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States.

Among the speakers were two Palestinian teenagers, Lujain Al-Badry, who spoke of the litany of the latest Israeli massacres in Gaza — but she also highlighted the “forgotten” atrocities by illegal settlers and the military in the West Bank — and the other a poet who spoke passionately of the constant evictions of Palestinians from their own homes and land.

More than 700,000 Israelis have illegally settled on Palestinian land since the territory was occupied during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war in defiance of repeated UN resolutions declaring the settlements unlawful.

Irish activist and trade unionist Joe Carolan, just back from a visit to Ireland, spoke of the political drift to the right in France and other European Union countries and reminded the crowd that support for the Palestinian cause and against colonialism was “liberation for all”.

The crowd marched around the block to protest outside the US consulate in Auckland, calling on Washington to end its support and funding for the Israeli genocide.

At least 39,324 Palestinians have been killed and 90,830 others wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The Surafend massacre
Meanwhile, an RNZ podcast released at the weekend has revealed new insights into what has been described as the worst New Zealand military atrocity — the Surafend massacre during the First World War in Palestine in 1918.

According to the new season RNZ’s Black Sheep podcast, New Zealand and Australian soldiers “murdered upwards of 40 Arab civilians in a Palestinian village” in December 2018.

“But,” continued the podcast report, “more than 100 years later, we still don’t know exactly who did it, or why.

“We investigate what one military historian describes as ‘by far the worst war crime ever committed by New Zealand military personnel’ — The Surafend massacre — and other allegations of war crimes against Anzacs in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Dr David Robie is editor and publisher of Asia Pacific Report.

The decision of the International Court of Justice that Israeli settlements on Palestinian land are illegal demands immediate action from the New Zealand government, says a national advocacy group.

The ICJ in the Hague found in a landmark but non-binding advisory ruling on Friday that “Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and the regime associated with them, have been established and are being maintained in violation of international law”.

The court said that the UN Security Council, the General Assembly and all states had an obligation not to recognise the occupation as legal and not to give aid or support toward Israel in maintaining it.

• READ MORE: Palestinians urge world to end Israel’s illegal occupation after ICJ ruling
• Why ICJ ruling against Israel’s settlement policies will be hard to ignore
• Other Israel’s War on Gaza reports

In a statement today, the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) said the NZ government should immediately:

• impose a ban on the importation of all products from the illegal Israeli settlements; and
• direct NZ’s Superfund, Accident Compensation Commission (ACC) and Kiwisaver funds to divest from companies identified by the United Nations Human Rights Council as complicit in the building and maintenance of these settlements.

The recently updated database is here.

The ICJ ruling confirmed what the UN Security Council found in passing resolution 2334 in 2016.

This resolution was co-sponsored by New Zealand, which had a place on the Security Council at the time under a National-led government.

The United Nations Security Council stated that, in the occupied Palestinian territories, Israeli settlements had “no legal validity” and constituted “a flagrant violation under international law”.

It said they were a “major obstacle to the achievement of the two-state solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace” in the Middle East.

ICJ-Israel Occupied territories resolution.   Video: Al Jazeera

The ICJ ruling reinforced the UN resolution and the need for government action, the PSNA statement said.

“New Zealand, which co-sponsored the UN resolution in 2016 should lead the way on this,” said PSNA national chair John Minto.

“We need to put our money where our mouth is — especially since the current far-right Israeli government has said its ‘top priority’ is to push ahead with more illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land”.

New Zealanders have been holding national rallies in protest over Israel’s war on Gaza for nine months and protesters were expected to be out in their thousands this weekend to demand government action.

• Details of this weekend’s NZ protests

A pro-Palestinian advocacy group has put the New Zealand government “on notice” over its alleged complicity with Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza now in its eighth month.

Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) issued the government a “letter of demand” today for what it claims to be the government’s breaches of international law, and individual criminal liability under the Genocide Convention.

The PSNA said in the letter that “with the support of the Palestinian community,
human rights advocates, and community organisations, [we] hereby raise our concerns as to Aotearoa’s breaches of international law in relation to the unfolding situation in Gaza, as well as the individual criminal liability which may attach to New Zealand Government Ministers, Members of Parliament and other officials for aiding and abetting international crimes committed by Israel, including genocide, pursuant to the Rome Statute.

“This letter hereby puts you on notice for any relevant breach of the New Zealand domestic law or international law.”

• READ MORE: Nine killed as Israeli forces target people awaiting aid in southern Gaza
• Laws of war likely ‘consistently violated’ in Israeli strikes on Gaza: UN rights office
• PSNA issues notice to the government for complicity in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza
• Other War on Gaza reports

PSNA’S National chair John Minto said that “in writing this letter to you, we have engaged the assistance of several legal experts, students, academics, and human rights advocates.”

In a separate explanatory statement, Minto said the letter of demand “signals our intent with the support of members of the Palestinian community to pursue legal accountability for the lack of actions taken by the government, and key government ministers, in their roles.

“PSNA is deeply concerned about New Zealand failing to uphold our legal responsibilities under the Genocide Convention which requires the government to take actions that ‘prevent and punish the crime of genocide’.”

The letter was addressed to nine cabinet ministers, including Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

The other ministers are Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters, Attorney-General Judith Collins, Immigration Minister Erica Standford, Regulation Minister David Seymour, Trade Minister and Associate Foreign Affairs Minister Todd McClay, Minister for Women Nicola Grigg, Associate Minister of Immigration Casey Costello, and Associate Minister of Defence Chris Penk.

‘We have never seen anything like this’: UN Commission of Inquiry head  Video: Al Jazeera

NZ’s obligations
The letter stated that New Zealand’s obligations under international law were:

1. Its responsibility under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) to prevent and to punish the ongoing genocide in Gaza;
2. Its obligation pursuant to the Geneva Conventions to ensure respect for international humanitarian law; and
3. Its obligations under customary international law to cooperate with other states to bring an end Israel’s ongoing serious breaches of peremptory norms, and to refrain from aiding or assisting Israel in those breaches.

Alleged breaches
The PSNA letter alleged the following breaches of international law:

1. 

   Potential failure to prevent the export of military components for use in weaponry by Israel. Specifically, failure to adequately regulate Rakon Limited (a company based in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland) regarding the export of components to the United States for use in military equipment, which may be being used in Israel’s genocide;

2. Sending New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) personnel to train alongside Israel Defence Forces during the US-led Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) military exercises beginning on 26 June 2024;
3. Sending NZDF personnel to assist in United States and United Kingdom-led military operations against the Houthis in Yemen, with the effect of suppressing regional protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza;
4. Withholding approval for funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA);
5. Failure to provide humanitarian visas to Palestinians in Gaza who have family members in Aotearoa (by contrast with the 2022 Special Ukraine Visa for Ukrainians fleeing from war);
6. Failure to take any measures of retortion against Israel, such as expelling diplomats or suspending diplomatic relations;
7. Continuing to allow shipping company ZIM to use New Zealand ports;
8. Failure to suspend the Israel Working Holiday Visa for Israeli citizens who have served with the Israel Defence Forces carrying out international crimes;
9. Relatedly, failure to implement a ban on investments in, and imports from, companies building and maintaining illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land in line with UN Security Council resolution 2334 (UNSC2334 was co-sponsored at the UN Security Council by New Zealand in 2016); and
10. Failure to engage with proceedings in the genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and failing to denounce Israel’s breaches of ICJ rulings, most notably by illegally continuing its military assault on Rafah.

Minto concluded the detailed 39-page letter including supporting appendices by saying, “It is not too late for Aotearoa to hold Israel to account and to help bring an end to its impunity, and its atrocities.

“New Zealand must defend the international rule of law. We may rely upon it ourselves one day.”

PSNA plans to take further steps if it fails to get a “meaningful response” from the government and the relevant ministers by 18 July 2024.

• Full PSNA “letter of demand” to the New Zealand government

Good slogans have people nodding their heads in agreement because they recognise an underlying truth in the words.  

I have a worn-out t-shirt which carries the slogan, “The first casualty of war is truth — the rest are mostly civilians”.

If you find yourself nodding in agreement it’s possibly because you have found it deeply shocking to find this slogan validated repeatedly in almost eight months of Israel’s war on Gaza.

• READ MORE: Palestine protesters challenge TVNZ over Israeli ambassador’s ‘propaganda’
• Columbia Law Review website shut down over ‘censored’ article critical of Israel
• Other War on Gaza reports

The mainstream news sources which bring us the “truth” are strongly Eurocentric. Virtually all the reporting in our mainstream media comes via three American or European news agencies — AP, Reuters and the BBC — or from major US or UK based newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Washington Post or The New York Times. 

This reporting centres on Israeli narratives, Israeli reasoning, Israeli explanations and Israeli justifications for what they are doing to Palestinians. Israeli spokespeople are front and centre and quoted extensively and directly.

Palestinian voices, when they are covered, are usually at the margins. On television in particular Palestinians are most often portrayed as the incoherent victims of overwhelming grief.

In the mainstream media Israel’s perverted lies dominate. 

Riddled with examples
The last seven months is riddled with examples. Just two days after the October 7 attack on Israel, pro-Palestinian protesters were accused of chanting “Gas the Jews” outside the Sydney Opera House.

The story was carried around the world through mainstream media as a nasty anti-semitic slur on Palestinians and their supporters. Four months later, after an intensive investigation New South Wales police concluded it never happened. The words were never chanted.

However the Radio New Zealand website today still carries a Reuters report saying “A rally outside the Sydney Opera House two days after the Hamas attack had ignited heated debate after a small group were filmed chanting “Gas the Jews”.

Even if RNZ did the right thing and removed the report now the old adage is true: “A lie is halfway around the world before the truth has got its trousers on”. Four months later and the police report is not news but the damage has been done as the pro-Israel lobby intended.

The same tactic has been used at protests on US university campuses. A couple of weeks ago at Northeastern University a pro-Israel counter protester was caught on video shouting “Kill the Jews” in an apparent attempt to provoke police into breaking up the pro-Palestine protest.

The university ordered the protest to be closed down saying “the action was taken after some protesters resorted to virulent antisemitic slurs, including ‘Kill the Jews’”. The nastiest of lies told for the nastiest of reasons — protecting a state committing genocide.

Similarly, unverified claims of “beheaded babies” raced around the world after the October 7 attack on Israel and were even repeated by US President Joe Biden. They were false.

No baby beheaded
Even the Israeli military confirmed no baby was beheaded and yet despite this bare-faced disinformation the Israeli ambassador to New Zealand was able to repeat the lie, along with several others, in a recent TVNZ interview on Q&A without being challenged.

War propaganda such as this is deliberate and designed to ramp up anger and soften us up to accept war and the most savage brutality and blatant war crimes against the Palestinian people.

Recall for a moment the lurid claims from 1990 that Iraqi soldiers had removed babies from incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals and left them to die on the floor. It was false but helped the US convince the public that war against Iraq was justified.

Twelve years later the US and UK were peddling false claims about Iraq having “weapons of mass destruction” to successfully pressure other countries to join their war on Iraq.

Perhaps the most cynical misinformation to come out of the war on Gaza so far appeared in the hours following the finding of the International Court of Justice that South Africa had presented a plausible case that Israel was committing genocide.

Israel smartly released a short report claiming 12 employees of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) had taken part in the October 7 attack on Gaza. The distraction was spectacularly successful.

Western media fell over themselves to highlight the report and bury the ICJ findings with most Western countries, New Zealand included, stopping or suspending funding for the UN agency.

Independent probe
eedless to say an independent investigation out a couple of weeks ago shows Israel has failed to support its claims about UNRWA staff involved in the October 7 attacks. It doesn’t need forensic analysis to tell us Israel released this fact-free report to divert attention from their war crimes which have now killed over 36,000 Palestinians — the majority being women and children.

The problem goes deeper than manufactured stories. For many Western journalists the problem starts not with what they see and hear but with what their news editors allow them to say.

A leaked memo to New York Times journalists covering the war tells them they are to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to avoid using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land.

They have even been instructed not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” or the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza settled by Palestinian refugees driven off their land by Israeli armed militias in the Nakba of 1947–49.

These reporting restrictions are a blatant denial of Palestinian history and cut across accurate descriptions under international law which recognises Palestinians as refugees and the occupied Palestinian territories as precisely what they are — under military occupation by Israel.

People reading articles on Gaza from The New York Times have no idea the story has been “shaped” for us with a pro-Israel bias.

These restrictions on journalists also typically cover how Palestinians are portrayed in Western media. Every Palestinian teenager who throws a stone at Israeli soldiers is called a “militant” or worse and Palestinians who take up arms to fight the Israeli occupation of their land, as is their right under international law, are described as “terrorists” when they should be described as resistance fighters.

The heavy pro-Israel bias in Western media reporting is an important reason Israel’s military occupation of Palestine, and the ongoing violence which results from it, has continued for so long.

The answer to all of this is people power — join the weekly global protests in your centre against Israel’s settler colonial project with its apartheid policies against Palestinians.

And give the mainstream media a wide berth on this issue.

John Minto is national chair of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA). This article was first published by The Daily Blog and is republished by Asia Pacific Report with the author’s permission.

International outrage continues to reverberate as Israel ignores the International Court of Justice’s order to immediately cease its attack on southern Rafah, with UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese saying: “Israel will not stop this madness until we make it stop.”

Earlier, she had called for sanctions against Israel for defying the court order.

At least 35,903 people have been killed and 80,420 wounded in Israel’s war on Gaza since October 7, reports Al Jazeera.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live news: Calls to declare famine in the enclave
• Other War on Gaza reports

The death toll in Israel from Hamas’s attack stands at 1139 with dozens still held captive.

The Israeli military holds 3424 “administrative detainees” — prisoners held indefinitely and without charge — mostly Palestinian and seized since October 7. This figure is  26 times more “hostages” than being held by Hamas.

Israel’s public radio, Radio Israel, has cited General Yair Golan, former deputy chief-of-staff of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), saying that “there will be no deal [between Israel and Hamas] without the cessation of fighting” in Gaza.

‘Let’s be real’
“Let’s be real with ourselves, and we will not listen to the poison machine coming out of Jerusalem,” the general was quoted as saying.

Dr Mohamad Elmasry, a professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, citing a report in Politico, said “70 percent of Hamas’s fighting force remains intact on fighting in Gaza” and that Hamas had been able to recruit thousands of new members.

Israel has 26x more hostages than Hamas pic.twitter.com/cOjyct2QMO

— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani) May 25, 2024

The report, he said, also indicated Hamas’s extensive tunnel network under the Gaza Strip remained largely intact.

Professor Elmasry told Al Jazeera there had also been reports that Hamas had been able to repurpose unexploded Israeli bombs, so the Palestinian resistance group no longer had a weapons supply issue.

“I think Israel is clearly getting all it can handle on the battlefield right now,” he concluded.

Israeli forces were reported to be advancing on Jabalia, trying to take control of Gaza’s largest refugee camp.

Fighting intensifies
Fighting in the camp has intensified during the past two weeks as Israel continues with its military operation in the camp located in the north of the enclave.

Insult on injury.
The #US will have to go through full introspection, internal and external scrutiny over the disaster it has contributed to create in Gaza. https://t.co/oQ2YOQN8hk

— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) May 25, 2024

Craig Mokhiber, a former top UN human rights official, has questioned the US plan to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza through a temporary pier after the US said four vessels supporting the pier were washed away in the high seas on Saturday.

Mokhiber, who resigned from the UN last year, described the pier as a “fig leaf to cover US complicity in genocide and in the destruction of UNRWA” in a post on X.

He said the pier had “failed to have any meaningful impact” while “Israel continues to block aid at all crossing points”.

Meanwhile, in Canberra the leader of the Australian Greens, Adam Bandt, said his party would call a vote on Palestinian statehood in Australia’s Parliament this week, after a similar move announced by Ireland, Spain and Norway last week.

South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has been described as involving two competing narratives: one, about a displaced Palestinian people denied their right to self-determination, and the other, about the Jewish people who, having established an independent state in their historical homeland after generations of persecution in exile, have been under threat from hostile neighbours ever since.

When Fiji joined the United States as the only two countries to support Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory at the ICJ in February, it was seen as walking head-on into one of the longest running conflicts in history, leaving Fijians, as well as the international community struggling to figure out which narrative that position fits into.

Following Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel in October, Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Gaza has provoked international consternation and has seen a humanitarian crisis unfolding, resulting in the motions against Israel in the ICJ.

• READ MORE: South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice explained
• Nicaragua’s case against Germany over Israel’s war on Gaza
• Faith and foreign policy — how the Pacific vies the Israel-Gaza conflict
• Other War on Gaza reports

And since then other cases such as Nicaragua this month against Germany alleging the enabling by the European country of the alleged genocide by Israel as the second-largest arms supplier.

South Africa had asked the ICJ to consider whether Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

Fiji’s pro-Israel position was on another matter — the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) had requested the ICJ’s advisory opinion into Israel’s policies in the occupied territories.

Addressing the ICJ, Fiji’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, retired Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini said the ICJ should not render an advisory opinion on the questions posed by the General Assembly. He said the court had been presented “with a distinctly one-sided narrative. This fails to take account of the complexity of this dispute, and misrepresents the legal, historical, and political context.”

The UNGA request was “a legal manoeuvre that circumvents the existing internationally sanctioned and legally binding framework for resolution of the Israel-Palestine dispute,” said Tarakinikini.

“And if the ICJ is to consider the legal consequences of the alleged Israeli refusal to withdraw from territory, it must also look at what Palestine must do to ensure Israel’s security,” he said.

On the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, “Fiji notes that the right to self-determination is a relative right.

“In the context of Israel/Palestine, this means the Court would need to ascertain whether the Palestinians’ exercise of their right to self-determination has infringed the territorial
integrity, political inviolability or legitimate security needs of the State of Israel,” he added.

Crossing the line
Long-standing Fijian diplomats such as Kaliopate Tavola and Robin Nair said Fiji had crossed the line by breaking with its historically established foreign policy of friends-to-all -and-enemies-to-none.

Nair, Fiji’s first ambassador to the Middle East, said Fiji had always chosen to be an international peacekeeper, trusted by both sides to any argument or conflict that requires its services.

“The question being asked is, how is it in the national interest of Fiji to buy into the Israeli-Palestine dispute, particularly when it has been a well-respected international peacekeeper in the region?

“Fiji has either absented itself or abstained from voting on any decisions at the United Nations concerning the Israeli-Palestinian issues, particularly since 1978 when Fiji began taking part in the UN-sponsored peacekeeping operations in the Middle East,” Nair told Islands Business.

Nair said it was worth noting that in keeping with its traditionally neutral position on Israeli-Palestinian issues, Fiji had initially abstained on the UN General Assembly resolution asking the ICJ for an advisory opinion.

Former Ambassador Kaliopate Tavola asks why that position has changed. “Fiji’s rationale for showing interest now is not so much about the real issue on the ground — the genocide
taking place, but the niceties of legal processes. Coming from Fiji with its history of coups, it is a bit over-pretentious, one may say”.

At odds with past conduct
Former Deputy Commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, now professor in law at the University of Fiji, Aziz Mohammed, says the change of position does not reconcile with Fiji’s past endorsement of international instruments and conventions, including the International Criminal Court (ICC) statute on war crimes at play in the current proceedings at the ICJ.

“That endorsement happened by the government that was in power at the time of the current Prime Minister (Sitiveni Rabuka’s administration in the 1990s),” says Mohammed.

“We became the fifth country to endorse it. So, it was very early that we planted a flag to say, ‘we’re going to honour this international obligation’. And that happened. But subsequently, we brought the war crimes (section from the ICC statute) into our Crimes Act. Not only that, but we also adopted the international humanitarian laws into our laws — three Geneva Conventions, and three protocols. So, in terms of laws, most countries only have adopted two, but we have adopted all the international instruments. But then we’re not adhering to it.”

Fiji was among six Pacific Island countries — including Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Nauru, Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia — that voted against a UN resolution in October calling for a humanitarian truce in Gaza.

That vote caused significant political ruptures. One of Rabuka’s two coalition partners, the National Federation Party (NFP), said Fiji should have voted for the resolution. “It was a motion that called for peace and access to humanitarian aid, and as a country, we should have supported that,” said NFP Leader, Professor Biman Prasad, who is Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister.

Prasad’s fellow party member and former NFP Leader, Home Affairs Minister, Pio Tikoduadua, served in the Fiji peacekeeping forces deployed to Lebanon in the 1990s, and recounted the horrors of war he had seen in the region.

“I can still vividly remember the blood, the carnage and the mothers weeping for their children and the children finding out that they no longer had parents,” he said.

“In any war, no matter how justified your cause may be, it is always the innocent that suffer and pay the price. Those images, those memories are seared into my memory forever . . . that is why NFP has taken the position of supporting a ceasefire in Gaza contrary to Fiji’s position at the UN.”

Commander of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces, Major-General Jone Kalouniwai said the “decision has significant implications for the safety and security of RFMF troops currently deployed in the Middle East” and called on the government to reevaluate its stance on the Israel-Hamas issue.

“Their safety and security should remain a top priority, and it is crucial that their contribution to international peacekeeping efforts are fully supported and respected,” an RFMF statement said.

Interesting cocktail
Writing in the Asia-Pacific current affairs publication, The Diplomat, Melbourne-based Australia and the Pacific political analyst, Grant Wyeth said Pacific islanders’ faith and foreign policy make an “interesting cocktail” that drives their UN votes in favour of Israel. He knocks any theories about the United States having bought off these island nations.

“Rather than power, faith may be the key to understanding the Pacific Islands’ approach,” writes Wyeth. “Much of the Pacific is highly observant in their Christianity, and they have an eschatological understanding of humanity.”

He notes that various denominations of Protestantism see the creation of Israel in 1948 as the fulfillment of a Biblical prophecy in which the Jewish people — “God’s chosen” — return to the Holy Land.

“Support for Israel is, therefore, a deeply held spiritual belief, one that sits alongside Pacific
Islands’ other considerations of interests and opportunities when forming their foreign policies.”

In September, Papua New Guinea moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Prime Minister James Marape was quoted as saying at the time: “For us to call ourselves
Christian, paying respect to God will not be complete without recognising that Jerusalem is the universal capital of the people and the nation of Israel.”

Political vs humanitarian
The commentators draw the distinction between the matter of political recognition/state identity and the humanitarian issues at stake.

Says Mohammed: “This is not about recognising the state of Israel. This is about a conflict where people wanted to protect the unprotected. All they were saying is, ‘let’s’ support a ceasefire so [that] women, children, elderly … could get out [and] food supplies, medical supplies could get in …’ and it wasn’t [going to be] an indefinite ceasefire, which we [Fiji]
agreed to later.”

Fiji eventually did vote for the ceasefire when it came before the UN General Assembly again in December, following a major outcry against its position at home. The key concern going forward is the impact on the future of Fiji’s decades-long peacekeeping involvement in the Middle East.

Fiji-born political sociologist, Professor Steven Ratuva, is director of the Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies and professor in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Canterbury.

“The security of Fijian soldiers overseas will be threatened, as well as Fijian citizens themselves,” says Ratuva. “There are already groups campaigning underground for a tourist boycott of Fiji. I’ve personally received angry emails about ‘your bloody dumb country.’”

Nair says when 45 peacekeeping Fijian soldiers were taken hostage by the al Qaeda-linked Syrian rebel group al-Nusra Front in the Golan Heights in 2014, when all else — including the UN — had failed to secure their release, Fiji’s only bargaining power was the value of its peacekeeping neutrality.

“No international power stepped up to help Fiji in its most traumatic time in international relations in its entire history. Fiji had to fall back on itself, to use its own humble credentials. I successfully used our peace-keeping credentials in the Middle East and over many decades, including the shedding of Fijian blood, to ensure peace in the Middle East, to free our captured soldiers.”

Punishing the RFMF?
Mohammed agrees with the concern about the implications of Fiji’s compromised neutrality.

“I think what’s on everybody’s mind is whether we’re going to continue peacekeeping or suddenly, somebody is going to say, ‘enough of Fiji, they have compromised their neutrality, their impartiality, and as such, we are withdrawing consent and we want them to go back,’” he says.

Fiji’s Home Affairs Minister, Pio Tikoduadua has been dismissive of such concerns, saying Fiji’s position on Israel at the ICJ did not diminish the capability of its peacekeepers because Fiji had “very professional people serving in peacekeeping roles”.

Mohammed, with an almost 40-year military career and having held the rank of Deputy Commander and once a significant figure on Fiji’s military council, asks whether Fiji’s position on Israel is a strategic manoeuvre by the government to reign in the military.

“Do they really want Fijian peacekeepers out there? Or are they going to indirectly punish the RFMF [Republic of Fiji Military Forces]?” he said in an interview with Islands Business.

He floats this theory on the basis that Fiji’s position on Israel came from two men acutely aware of what is at stake for the Fijian military — Prime Minister Rabuka and Tarakinikini, both seasoned army officers with extensive experience in matters of the Middle East.

“We all know that in recent times, the RFMF has been vocal (in national affairs). And they have stood firm on their role under Article 131 (of Fiji’s 2013 Constitution which states that it is the military’s overall responsibility to ensure at all times the security, defence and well-being of Fiji and all Fijians).

“And they have pressured the government into positions, so much so, the government has had difficulty. And they (government) say, ‘the RFMF are stepping out of position. Now, how do we control the RFMF? How do we cut them into place? One, we can basically give them everything and keep them quiet, or two, we take away the very thing that put them in the limelight. How do we do that? We take a position, knowing very well that the host countries will withdraw their consent, and the Fijians will be asked to leave’.

“Fiji will no longer have peacekeepers. No peacekeeping engagements, the numbers of the RFMF will have to be reduced. So, all they will do is be confined to domestic roles.

“People are questioning this,” says Mohammed. “Military strategists are raising this issue because the government knows they can’t openly tell the Fijian public that we are withdrawing from peacekeeping. There’ll be an outcry because every second household in Fiji has some member who has served in peacekeeping.

“So, strategically, we [government] take a position. It may not be perceived that way. But the outcome is happening in that direction.”

Richard Naidu is currently editor of Islands Business. This article was published in the March edition of the magazine and is republished here with permission.

The leader of a New Zealand solidarity group of Palestinian self-determination supporters has accused the country’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters of making a “bluff and bluster” speech at the United Nations that was misleading about inaction at home.

National chair John Minto of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) said in a statement today the Peters speech at the UN General Assembly yesterday was “bluff and bluster . . . [and] a classic case of doing one thing at home and saying another for overseas audiences”.

He said the speech “fooled nobody” in New Zealand.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live: Rafah threat raises questions about truce talks
• NZ’s Peters criticises Security Council at UN, says Gaza ‘a wasteland’
• Other War on Gaza reports

In his UNGA speech, Peters described Israel’s war on Gaza as an “utter catastrophe” and labelled the besieged enclave a “wasteland”.

He went on to say Israel could “not be under any misconceptions as to its legal obligations”.

Peters also condemned the use of the veto in the UN Security Council five times to block ceasefire resolutions, and Israel’s continued building of illegal settlements on Palestinian land, saying the “misguided notion” and forced displacement of Palestinians “imperil the two-state solution”.

Minto admitted that “these were strong words” but he added that they were “meaningless in the context of what the government has failed to do at home”.

The PSNA chair said Peters had not told his international audience that the New Zealand government had:

• Refused to stop New Zealand military exports which support Israel’s war on Gaza;
• Refused (and still refuses) to condemn Israel for any of its war crimes such as collective punishment, the mass slaughter of over 33,000 Palestinians — mostly women and children — the targeting of aid workers and deliberate starvation of Gaza’s Palestinian population;
• Refused (and still refuses) to call for an immediate permanent ceasefire in Gaza;
• Refused (and still refuses) to reinstate funding for UNRWA (let alone doubling its funding and bringing forward payments which the government has been urged to do);
• Refused (and still refuses) to withdraw from the US war to target Yemen which is acting to oppose Israel’s genocide of Palestinians;
• Refused (and still refuses) to support or join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice;
• Refused (and still refuses) to shut down the Israeli Embassy; and
• Refused (and still refuses) to grant humanitarian visas for Palestinians with family in New Zealand

“Winston Peters stands with the US/Israel on Gaza in every important respect but has tried to give a different impression to the United Nations,” Minto said.

“There was nothing in his speech which holds Israel to account for its war crimes — not even a single punctuation mark.

“It was a Janus-faced performance at the United Nations.”

UN considers Palestine membership bid
Meanwhile, Palestine’s ambassador at the United Nations, speaking earlier than Peters, was optimistic about the occupied territory’s bid for full membership at the UN. The bid has been referred to a Security Council committee.

“This is a historic moment again,” said Ambassador Riyad Mansour.

The committee is expected to make a decision about Palestine’s status later this month, said Vanessa Frazier, Malta’s UN ambassador.

Al Jazeera’s Gabriel Elizondo is monitoring the latest developments at UN headquarters.

He said the last time Palestine’s bid for full UN membership got this far in 2011, it failed primarily because the US threatened to veto it.

Despite the carnage, United Nations resolutions and international court rulings, Israel’s war in Gaza has the potential to get much worse. Unless Hamas frees all Israeli hostages by March 10, Israel may launch an all-out offensive in Rafah, a city of 1.5 million people, cornered against the border with Egypt.

The US has continued to block UN Security Council resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire. But President Joe Biden has cautioned Israel against a Rafah ground assault without a credible plan to protect civilians.

More direct calls for restraint have come from the UN secretary-general and the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.

• READ MORE: Israeli siege has placed Gazans at risk of starvation − prewar policies made them vulnerable in the first place
• Why Egypt refuses to open its border to Palestinians forcibly displaced from Gaza
• The UN’s top court didn’t call for a ceasefire in Gaza – how does NZ respond now?

To its credit, New Zealand, along with Australia and Canada, added its voice in a joint statement on February 15:

A military operation into Rafah would be catastrophic […] We urge the Israeli government not to go down this path […] Palestinian civilians cannot be made to pay the price of defeating Hamas.

New Zealand also reiterated its commitment to a political settlement and a two-state solution. Given how hard some other countries are pushing for a ceasefire and peace, however, it is fair to ask whether the National-led coalition government could be doing more.

NZ absent from a crucial case
So far, New Zealand’s most obvious contribution has been to deploy a six-member defence force team to the region to deter Houthi rebel attacks on commercial and naval shipping in the Red Sea.

This collaboration with 13 other countries is on the right side of international law. But the timing suggests it is more about preventing the Israel-Gaza situation from spreading and destabilising the region than about protecting international waterways per se.

Furthermore, there is a risk of New Zealand’s response appearing one-sided, considering its relative silence on other fronts.

For example, following the interim ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the application of the Genocide Convention to Israel’s devastation of Gaza, a second opinion is being sought from the court over the legality of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Malki told the court his people were suffering “colonialism and apartheid” under Israeli occupation. It was the latest round in a monumental debate central to any lasting peace process.

More than 50 countries presented arguments at the ICJ last week, the most to engage with any single case since the court was established in 1945. But New Zealand was not present in the oral proceedings.

This absence matches New Zealand’s abstention at the United Nations General Assembly vote that referred the case to the ICJ. A country that prides itself on an independent foreign policy seems to have lost its voice.

Doctors Without Borders warns that Gaza’s whole healthcare system is collapsing as Israel continues to intensify its attacks.

Follow our LIVE coverage: https://t.co/bo5Dp2wxPd pic.twitter.com/lyy6NQiRhX

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) February 29, 2024

An even-handed foreign policy
New Zealand does call for the observance of international humanitarian law in Gaza. It has been less vocal, though, about calling for accountability for war crimes, no matter which side commits them.

The International Criminal Court, New Zealand’s permanent representative to the UN has said, is “a central pillar in the international rules-based order and the international criminal justice system”.

Directly supporting that sentiment would mean calling for independent investigations of all alleged crimes in the current Israel-Gaza conflict.

Given countries it considers friends and allies do more to register their disapproval of the situation, New Zealand needs to consider whether its own current sanctions system is adequate.

The White House has begun to sanction individual Israeli settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories, accusing them of undermining peace, security and stability. Britain has also placed sanctions on a small number of “extremist” settlers. France has recently identified and sanctioned 28 such individuals.

Govt designates Hamas as terrorist entity https://t.co/b2EQyehohr

— Newshub Politics (@NewshubPolitics) February 29, 2024

However, New Zealand has remained silent, until this week declaring the political wing of Hamas a “terrorist” entity — a decision being criticised — and banning an unspecified number of extremist Israeli settlers from travelling to New Zealand.

This prompts an obvious question: if sanctions can be applied to both Russia and Iran for their actions, should New Zealand now follow the lead of its allies and take active measures to express its disapproval of what is happening in Gaza and the occupied territories?

Dr Alexander Gillespie is professor of Law at the University of Waikato. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

The International Court of Justice (ICC) has held its last day of hearings examining the legality of Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian lands.

Fifty two countries and three international organisations have addressed the court in the hearings that ended on Monday.

Most called for Israel’s occupation to be declared illegal and for it to end, with some calling for reparations to be paid by Israel to the state of Palestine for illegal settlements.

• READ MORE: The ICJ hearings

Only the representatives of the United States, United Kingdom and Fiji claimed the occupation was legal while non-government organisations and opposition politicians in Fiji condemned their country’s surprise position.

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst and a Middle East expert, said the final legal arguments had “demolished the shameless defences” of Israel’s illegal occupation.

“Ireland, Algeria and South Africa . . . projected their own experience, their own narrative, their own history, their own struggle with [colonial] occupation, and their own experience with liberation as well,” he said.

“Hence it was both instructive, if you will, not I mean liberating, not depressing.

“I want to say it was instructive that they did share with us that but then we had this disingenuous, selective, mind boggling, if not, you know, mind insulting presentations by the United States and the United Kingdom that I think set everyone back.

ICJ hearing: Final Israeli occupation arguments.  Video: Al Jazeera

“You know they were trampling over international law, expropriating international law, confiscating international legality in order to fit their own little geopolitical calculus on behalf of their little client Israel.

“So it was a bit shameful, it was a bit shameless to be honest and that’s why today we’ve heard from the Arab League and the [Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)], legal opinions that were basically set or apparently revised in order to counter the arguments of the UK and the US and in that way I thought it was brilliant and it was entertaining almost.”

The African Union lawyers argued that “occuopatiion” and “self-determination” could not exist in the same place at the same time.

Amnesty International has accused Israel of defying last month’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling to prevent genocide by failing to allow adequate humanitarian aid to reach Gaza.

The global human rights group said Israel had failed to even take the “bare minimum steps” to comply.

A month after the ICJ had ordered “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip from the risk of genocide by ensuring sufficient humanitarian assistance and enabling basic services, Amnesty issued a statement condemning Israel’s lack of response.

• READ MORE: Israel’s war on Gaza live: Biden says ‘close’ on ceasefire deal
• Other War on Gaza reports

The order to provide aid was one of six provisional measures ordered by the court on January 26 and Israel was given one month to report back on its compliance with the measures.

“Over that period Israel has continued to disregard its obligation as the occupying power to ensure the basic needs of Palestinians in Gaza are met,” Amnesty International said.

“Israeli authorities have failed to ensure sufficient life-saving goods and services are reaching a population at risk of genocide and on the brink of famine due to Israel’s relentless bombardment and the tightening of its 16-year-long illegal blockade.

“They have also failed to lift restrictions on the entry of life-saving goods, or open additional aid access points and crossings or put in place an effective system to protect humanitarians from attack.”

‘Callous indifference’
Not only had Israel created “one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world”, it had also displayed a “callous indifference” to the fate of Gaza’s population by creating conditions which the ICJ had said placed them at imminent risk of genocide.

“Time and time again, Israel has failed to take the bare minimum steps humanitarians have desperately pleaded for that are clearly within its power to alleviate the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” said Amnesty’s Heba Morayef, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“As the occupying power, under international law, Israel has a clear obligation to ensure the basic needs of Gaza’s population are met.

“Israel has not only woefully failed to provide for Gazans’ basic needs, but it has also been blocking and impeding the passage of sufficient aid into the Gaza Strip, in particular to the north which is virtually inaccessible, in a clear show of contempt for the ICJ ruling and in flagrant violation of its obligation to prevent genocide.”

Amnesty said the scale and gravity of the “humanitarian catastrophe” caused by Israel’s relentless bombardment, destruction and “suffocating siege” put more than two million Palestinians of Gaza at risk of irreparable harm.

The supplies entering Gaza before the ICJ order had been a drop in the ocean compared to the needs for the last 16 years.

Trucks entering Gaza reduced by third
“Yet, in the three weeks following the ICJ order, the number of trucks entering Gaza decreased by about a third, from an average of 146 a day in the three weeks prior, to an average of 105 a day over the subsequent three weeks.”

Across the Gaza Strip, said the Amnesty International statement, Israel’s “engineered humanitarian disaster grows more horrifying each day”.

By February 19, acute malnutrition was surging in Gaza and threatening children’s lives, with 15.6 percent of children under two years acutely malnourished in northern Gaza and 5 percent of children under two years in Rafah in the south.

The speed and severity of the decline in the population’s nutritional status within just three months was “unprecedented globally”.

• Full Amnesty International statement

RNZ Pacific

Former Fiji prime minister Voreqe Bainimarama says the country’s intervention at the International Court of Justice over Israel’s occupation of Palestine betrays Fiji’s legacy as peacekeepers.

Paul Reichler, an attorney representing Palestine at the ICJ revealed this week that Fiji and the United States were the only nations to defend Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

Fifty countries and three international organisations are calling for self-determination and an end to the Israeli military occupation which has lasted more than half a century.

• READ MORE: Fiji human rights group condemns ‘troubling’ support for Israel at ICJ
• Palestinian foreign minister tells ICJ of ‘besieged, bombed and killed’ Gazans
• What’s the ICJ case against Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine?
• Other War on Gaza reports

Bainimarama said Fiji’s stance “insults the intelligence of every Fijian”.

The former prime minister and military commander said that that position undid Fiji’s long-standing commitment to neutrality, peacekeeping, and the principles of self-determination and decolonisation.

“The coalition government’s claim that the occupation of foreign territory by Israel is legal — an argument not even advanced by Israel itself — reveals a disturbing truth that Fiji’s voice to the world is hostage to a demented few who are hellbent on destroying our national reputation,” he said in a statement today.

‘Contradicts our stance on independence’
“This action contradicts our firm stance on the rights to independence and statehood, rights we have championed for our Pacific brothers and for all colonial peoples.

He said Fiji has stood with Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Kiribati, and others in their pursuit of independence.

“We must ask ourselves: with what credibility will we support the independence of territories like New Caledonia and French Polynesia? We must not be selective in our support for statehood and independence.

“Our actions today will define our legacy and our ability to lead in the Pacific and beyond.

“The world should know that the vast majority of Fijians stand on the side of peace. That is our national character and that is the spirit in which we offer our service on the frontlines of conflict zones around the world.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.