As NGO workers, human rights advocates, medical professionals, journalists and others actively engaged on the issue of Gaza, the Occupied West Bank, and the wider Middle East, we feel despair. The people of Gaza are being erased from the face of the earth by Israel's genocidal attacks, ongoing now for more than a year. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been murdered, and the slaughter continues. Hospitals, clinics, refugee camps, residential neighbourhoods, water and food facilities have been destroyed. And the world is doing nothing to stop these crimes.
Never have we felt that appeals to humanity and international law have been so consistently ignored. In fact our government is complicit in these atrocities, offering diplomatic, political, economic and military support to Israel, enabling it to carry out these most extreme of crimes against humanity.
Those of us who have tried to pressure the government have been met with unprecedented indifference and a complete lack of will to bring about a ceasefire. Sadly we have concluded that the polite meetings that our organisations are continuing to have with ministers and senior civil servants are having no impact, but rather risk whitewashing the government's complicity, on the grounds that they have 'consulted' us.
We believe it is time for a different approach. Many of the organisations we work with have signed up to principles of decolonisation and anti-racism. On Gaza and in the rest of Palestine, we must put those principles into practice.
Many civil society organisations have spoken truthfully with their supporters, the public and the media about what we are witnessing – we urge them to do ever more forcefully and to encourage more organisations to join us. We must say clearly: This is a genocide. In the face of these atrocities, Israel must face forceful military and economic sanctions immediately. Our own government is complicit, and we must refuse to engage with government processes aimed at whitewashing these crimes and instead take all actions possible to bring ministers to account for their role in these atrocities.
We offer the fullest solidarity to our incredibly brave colleagues working in Gaza to alleviate suffering and save lives, even as Israel murders aid workers, UN workers and journalists on a scale not seen before. Our government is not only endangering them with its continued support for Israel, but also using them to suggest that the UK is playing a neutral role in Gaza. We must refuse to become instruments of British foreign policy when it comes to delivering aid or 'reconstructing' Gaza.
We write this statement in the knowledge that what we are seeing in Gaza today will set a precedent for how we deal with emergency situations in the future. We must not allow this to become in any way normalised, lest we ourselves become complicit. History will judge how we behave in this moment.
Nick Dearden Shaista Aziz Hasan Salim Patel Kate Attwooll Zainab Waliullah Sian Pratchett Leena Patel Chris Rose Katie Hagley Claire Thiel Charlotte Marshall Esther McIntosh John Howard Nicholas Taylor Diana Paulding Lynn McAllister Marie Cacace Miranda Pinch Ruth Thomas Gerald Conyngham Othman Moqbel Karen McDonnell Leila Younes Michael Mosselmans Kristina Flegg Kafia Omar Alena Ivanova Daisy Pearson Diarmaid McDonald Tom Wills Liz Murray Izzie McIntosh Guy Taylor André Dallas Jean Blaylock Caroline Qutteneh Katie Roxburgh Ana Caistor Arendar Tim Bierley Anita Bhadani Amna Abdullatif Huda Jawad