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The Panel discussion “2023 War on Gaza: The Responsibility to Prevent Genocide” was convened on 12 December 2023 by the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP). The event consisted of an opening with remarks by H.E. Mr. Arrmanatha Christiawan Nasir, Vice Chair of the Committee and Permanent Representative of Indonesia to the United Nations, and H.E. Ms. Feda Abdelhady Nasser, Deputy Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations. The panel was comprised of Mr. Jehad Abusalim, Executive Director of The Jerusalem Fund; Mr. Raz Segal, Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Endowed Professor in the Study of Modern Genocide, Stockton University; Ms. Hannah Bruinsma, Legal Advisor at the NGO Law for Palestine; and Ms. Katherine Gallagher, Senior Staff Attorney at the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights. The event was broadcast live on UN WebTV.
In his opening, the Vice Chair stated that the Committee had convened the panel at a time when the Palestinian people’s very existence was under threat. The death toll among Palestinian civilians—mostly women and children—caused by Israel’s war on Gaza was akin to collective punishment. Furthermore, the forcible displacement of Gaza’s population, many of whom were already refugees, and the systematic destruction of homes, infrastructure, mosques, churches, hospitals, public buildings, and protected objects, was endangering the very presence of Palestinians in their ancestral land. Such violence raised questions about the objectives of Israel’s military operation and the international community’s responsibility to address ongoing crimes. The international community recently commemorated the 75th anniversary of the “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” of 9 December 1948, ratified or acceded by 153 States, as of 2022. It was the obligation and duty of Member States to prevent this crime and implement the “never again” call.