‘World powers allowing Israel to keep killing Gaza journalists to hide war crimes’

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) – World powers are intentionally looking the other way as Israel continues its deadly attacks on journalists in Gaza, while also not letting in others from outside, to cover up its crimes, according to Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, co-founder of British group Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL).

“It’s very clear that they are trying to prevent the news about … what they are guilty of in Gaza reaching the rest of the world, so they have banned outside journalists from going into Gaza to see what’s happening,” she told Anadolu in an interview in London.

“So, the fact that there are courageous, heroic journalists working there is obviously a serious problem for them, and they are trying to silence these people.”

The latest journalist to fall victim to an Israeli attack was Salem Abu Toyor, a reporter for Al-Quds Today television station, who was killed along with his son in an April 30 airstrike on their home in Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp.

The number of journalists killed in Gaza since last October is now at 142, according to Palestinian authorities. International watchdogs, including the Committee to Protect Journalists, have already said that Israel’s war on Gaza is the deadliest in modern history for journalists.

Wimborne-Idrissi, who has been campaigning for Palestine for many years, termed it a “heinous” policy that is yet another “war crime” being perpetrated by Israel.

“It’s horrendous that this is allowed to go on. The major powers, the US and European countries, allow this to go on, even while their people are marching on the streets to demand that it stop,” she said.

- Israel has ‘completely ignored’ ICJ

Israel is facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for its assault on Gaza, which has now killed nearly 34,600 Palestinians, the vast majority being women and children, and wounded over 77,800.

It has displaced millions more, around 85% of the population, leaving them facing famine and acute shortages of medical aid and other essentials.

Israeli attacks have also laid waste to large swaths of the besieged enclave, devastating everything from housing to medical facilities, educational institutes, and all sorts of civic infrastructure.

Wimborne-Idrissi called out Western nations for their failure to hold Israel accountable or make it comply with international humanitarian law.

She hailed South Africa for taking Israel to the ICJ, praising its legal team for putting up an “amazingly well-researched and thoroughly well-argued case.”

“We should all be thanking them for it,” she said.

The strength of the case was the reason that, despite the expectation that governments would pressure the ICJ judges, the court gave an interim decision in favor of South Africa and ordered Israel to take provisional measures, she said.

“The problem is, of course, that Israel has completely ignored it,” said the JVL official.

“Those countries which are signatories to the Genocide Convention, who have an obligation to make sure the judgment of the court is carried out, have not done anything to make Israel comply.”

She said these nations have been putting their hands up, claiming that Israeli Prime Benjamin Netanyahu “doesn’t seem to be listening to our concerns.”

“They can act. They can take action right now. They can institute sanctions against the state of Israel, which is committing war crimes. They choose not to do so,” she asserted.

“It’s a political calculation on their part, which history will condemn them for, I have no doubt about that.”​​​​​​​