UN Security Council finally calls for ceasefire

Five and a half months into Israel’s #GazaGenocide against 2.3 million Palestinians, the UNSC today finally “demanded” an “immediate” and “lasting” ceasefire, obligating Israel to stop its genocide. Facing unprecedented isolation worldwide and opposition from a majority of voters in the US, the genocidal Biden administration abstained. 

Based on the ICJ decision on 26 January that Israel is plausibly committing genocide, the legal obligation of all states to end their complicity in Israel’s genocidal war and to prevent genocide has been triggered. As UN human rights experts have said, this entails an immediate comprehensive military embargo and the imposition of “sanctions on trade, finance, travel, technology or cooperation.” In line with the ICJ ruling, the resolution demands the “lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance,” promising to end Israel’s use of starvation as a weapon of war. 

Let’s escalate all boycotts, divestment and targeted sanctions against Israel to compel it to implement the resolution as well as to hold it accountable for its genocide and its underlying 75 years of settler-colonial apartheid. All states, corporations and institutions that have aided and abetted either must also be held to account. Without this, Gaza will go down in history not just as the world’s first live-streamed genocide but also as the cemetery of the international legal system.