Nagasaki decides against inviting Israel to commemorate nuclear bombing of Japan amid war on Gaza

By Riyaz ul Khaliq

ISTANBUL (AA) – The local government in Nagasaki province declared Wednesday it will not invite Israel to its annual conference to commemorate US nuclear bombing of Japan.

Mayor Shiro Suzuki said Israel would “not be invited to the Aug. 9 annual peace ceremony,” Tokyo-based Kyodo News reported.

The decision to not invite Israel to the event comes on a day Israel assassinated Palestinian resistance group Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh at his residence in Iranian capital Tehran.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima cities will be commemorating 79th anniversary of 1945 atomic bombing by the US on Japan next month.

Japan has refused to invite Russia and Belarus for similar conference since Moscow waged war on Ukraine in Feb. 2022.

However, local government in Hiroshima has invited Tel Aviv to its event on Aug. 6.

The local authorities in Hiroshima, however, have called for an “immediate cease-fire in the Palestinian territory.”

The Hiroshima government has come under severe criticism for purported double standards and many activists are pressing the authorities to withdraw the invite to Tel Aviv.

Several programs against Israel’s participation have been planned in the run up to Aug. 6.

Japan has witnessed many demonstrations and protests against Israeli war on Palestinian besieged enclave of Gaza, with calls to ceases military relations with Tel Aviv.

Israel, flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza since an Oct. 7, 2023 attack by the Palestinian group Hamas.

At least 39,400 Palestinians have since been killed, mostly women and children, and nearly 91,000 injured, according to local health authorities.

Over nine months into the Israeli onslaught, vast tracts of Gaza lie in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.

Israel is accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which ordered it to immediately halt its military operation in the southern city of Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had sought refuge from the war before it was invaded on May 6.