OTTOWA, (PIC)
Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, stressing that the escalation of military tension between the Israeli army and Lebanon’s Hezbollah party makes the ceasefire more urgent.
In a joint statement on Friday, the leaders of the three countries said “Israel must listen to the concerns of the international community.”
The statement added, “Protecting civilians is of the utmost importance and is a fundamental requirement under international humanitarian law. Palestinian civilians cannot be forced to pay the price for Hamas’s defeat, this must stop.”
The three countries called on the Israeli authorities to hold extremist settlers accountable for their ongoing acts of violence against Palestinian citizens and to retract their settlement program in the West Bank.
According to a report by Human Rights Watch, released in May, settler attacks in the West Bank have led to the displacement of more than 1,200 Palestinians from 20 residential communities, and the complete removal of at least seven other communities since the start of the war on Gaza.
The joint statement, the second since last February, called on the Israeli authorities to respond objectively to the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ruled that its occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal.
Last Friday, the ICJ issued its opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation policies and practices in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, and the implications of the occupation’s conduct for other states, following a legal process that lasted 18 months.
The ICJ, in a public session at its headquarters in The Hague, affirmed that Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories is illegal and must end as soon as possible, in its strongest decision on the Palestinian issue to date.
On the other hand, the three countries expressed their concern about the outbreak of a regional war following the escalation of military tension between Israel and Hezbollah, stressing that this makes the ceasefire in Gaza more urgent.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel has been waging a war of extermination on the Gaza Strip, which has resulted in more than 39,000 martyrs, more than 90,000 injured, mostly children and women, the displacement of about 1.9 million people, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction of health and educational infrastructure and famine that has claimed the lives of dozens of children, according to local and United Nations data.
