Dr Rupa Huq

We have seen UK recognition of Palestine become a reality and a Gaza ceasefire under Labour, but still 70,000 Palestinians have been killed—a figure now accepted by Israel—including 500 people since the ceasefire. We have seen repeated forcible displacement and whole neighbourhoods gone. Is this genocide, like Srebrenica and Rwanda? The ICJ will take years to determine that, but the UN commission of inquiry and the International Association of Genocide Scholars say yes. How does Joe Public decide? With 37 non-governmental organisations, including Oxfam, effectively banned and international media excluded, the external mechanisms that should help us make that assessment are gone. Targeted measures are rendering it impossible to judge. The civilian/combatant line is blurred given the deaths of women and children, making the IDF claim that it always minimises casualties questionable. The very risk of genocide raises Britain’s obligations under the 1948 convention to prevent genocide or risk complicity. Although we have allowed children to travel to the UK from Gaza for medical care, and allowed students in, we have also seen Gazan hospitals, schools, churches, mosques, universities and refugee camps destroyed. That biblical devastation is man-made.