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'Stop This Carnage': Irish President Slams EU Nations for Silence as Israel Inflicts 'Atrocious' Harm on Gaza
“I believe the EU will find it extraordinarily difficult to ever be a union in any sense again when some of its strongest members are deciding to stay silent in watching emaciated," said Irish President Michael Higgins.
Sep 17, 2025
Irish President Michael Higgins on Tuesday shamed fellow European nations for their inaction in ending the conflict in Gaza.
As reported by Turkish news website AA, Higgins pointed to the finding by the United Nations' (UN) commission of inquiry that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza to argue that the world needed to do more to end the carnage.
Specifically, Higgins argued that Israel and any nations that supply it with arms should be expelled from the UN. He also had harsh words for European Union (EU) nations whom he accused of looking the other way in the face of mass atrocities.
"I believe the EU will find it extraordinarily difficult to ever be a union in any sense again when some of its strongest members are deciding to stay silent in watching emaciated children in what is a human, manmade, really atrocious infliction on people," he said.
Higgins also highlighted some particularly gruesome findings from the commission's report to push for the EU to take action to "stop this carnage" and the "slaughter of civilians."
"That report says 90% of all housing has been destroyed, education facilities have been destroyed, and healthcare facilities and fertility facilities are being destroyed—in other words, you're attacking birth," he said.
The UN commission's report concluded that Israel had committed four distinct kinds of "genocidal acts," as defined by the 1948 Genocide Convention: Killing members of a group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to a group, deliberately inflicting conditions aimed at bringing about a group's destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group.
The only genocidal act that Israel has not yet committed, the report said, was forcibly transferring children of a group to a different group.
Navi Pillay, the commission chair and former UN high commissioner for human rights, said that report shows Israel has shown "an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention."
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Aid Groups Demand 'Decisive Action' From World Leaders to Stop Israel's Genocide in Gaza
Leaders of 22 NGOs say if nations continue to treat their legal obligations to oppose genocide "as optional, they are not only complicit but are setting a dangerous precedent for the future. History will undoubtedly judge this moment as a test of humanity. And we are failing."
Sep 17, 2025
The heads of 22 international aid organizations on Wednesday issued a joint statement following a UN commission's finding that Israel is carrying out a genocide in the Gaza Strip, which calls on governments worldwide to end their complicity with the carnage by intervening forcefully to halt the brutal assault on the Palestinian people that has left many tens of thousands dead and the entirety of the population living under famine conditions and constant bombardment with no safe place to seek refuge.
While the nearly two dozen groups who backed the statement—including ActionAid International, Oxfam, Médecins Sans Frontières, and the Norwegian Refugee Council—have tirelessly advocated for an end to the carnage in Gaza, the UN Commission of Inquiry report released Tuesday bolstered their calls that what Israel is doing to the people of Gaza is nothing short of "genocidal."
"The inhumanity of the situation in Gaza is unconscionable," the Wednesday joint statement reads. "As humanitarian leaders, we have borne direct witness to the horrifying deaths and suffering of the people of Gaza. Our warnings have gone unheeded and thousands more lives are still at stake."
Noting the Israeli military's ground invasion of Gaza City this week, which requires the forced displacement of approximately a million people in the city with nowhere to safely go, the group warns that "we are on the precipice of an even deadlier period in Gaza’s story if action is not taken. Gaza has been deliberately made uninhabitable."
Despite months and months of repeated calls to intervene, Israel's allies—including the United States and others—have refused to withdraw their support for Israel's military offensive and a humanitarian blockade that has resulted in mass starvation. The US government, Israel's most powerful ally and chief supplier of weapons, has continued to send arms and the Trump administration defends the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right ministers on the world stage.
In their declaration, the groups said the international community must act forcefully now or be forever remembered in history as complicit.
"The UN enshrined international law as the cornerstone of global peace and security," the statement reads. "If Member States continue to treat these legal obligations as optional, they are not only complicit but are setting a dangerous precedent for the future. History will undoubtedly judge this moment as a test of humanity. And we are failing."
On Tuesday, in response to the UN commission report, others made similar arguments.
“The Commission of Inquiry joins a growing number of international human rights bodies and experts in concluding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza," said Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, which was not among the signers of Wednesday's letter but has echoed its message time and again.
“There is no more time for excuses: as the evidence of Israel’s genocide continues to mount the international community cannot claim they didn’t know. This report must compel states to take immediate action and fulfill their legal and moral obligation to halt Israel’s genocide. The international community, especially those states with influence on Israel, must exert all possible diplomatic, economic, and political pressure to ensure an immediate and lasting ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access to Gaza.
The statement in full, along with the signatories, follows:
As world leaders convene next week at the United Nations, we are calling on all member states to act in accordance with the mandate the UN was charged with 80 years ago.
What we are witnessing in Gaza is not only an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe, but what the UN Commission of Inquiry has now concluded is a genocide.
With this finding, the Commission joins a growing number of human rights organisations and leaders globally, and within Israel.
The inhumanity of the situation in Gaza is unconscionable. As humanitarian leaders, we have borne direct witness to the horrifying deaths and suffering of the people of Gaza. Our warnings have gone unheeded and thousands more lives are still at stake.
Now, as the Israeli government has ordered the mass displacement of Gaza City – home to nearly one million people – we are on the precipice of an even deadlier period in Gaza’s story if action is not taken. Gaza has been deliberately made uninhabitable.
About 65,000 Palestinians have now been killed, including more than 20,000 children. Thousands more are missing, buried under the rubble that has replaced Gaza’s once lively streets.
Nine out of 10 people in Gaza’s 2.1 million population have been forcibly displaced - most of them multiple times - into increasingly shrinking pockets of land that cannot sustain human life.
More than half a million people are starving. Famine has been declared and is spreading. The cumulative impact of hunger and physical deprivation means people are dying every day.
Throughout Gaza, entire cities have been razed to the ground, along with their life-sustaining public infrastructure, such as hospitals and water treatment plants. Agricultural land has been systemically destroyed.
If the facts and numbers aren’t enough, we have harrowing story upon harrowing story.
Since the Israeli military tightened its siege six months ago, blocking food, fuel, and medicine, we witnessed children and families waste away from starvation as famine took hold. Our colleagues too have been impacted.
Many of us have been into Gaza. We have met countless Palestinians who have lost limbs as a result of Israel’s bombardment. We have personally met children so traumatized by daily airstrikes that they cannot sleep. Some cannot speak. Others have told us they want to die to join their parents in heaven.
We have met families who eat animal food to survive and boil leaves as a meal for their children.
Yet world leaders fail to act. Facts are ignored. Testimony is cast aside. And more people are killed as a direct consequence.
Our organisations, together with Palestinian civil society groups, the UN, and Israeli human rights organisations, can only do so much. We have tirelessly tried to defend the rights of the people of Gaza and sustain humanitarian assistance, but we are being obstructed every step of the way.
We have been denied access, and the militarization of the aid system has proved deadly. Thousands of people have been shot at while trying to reach the handful of sites where food is distributed under armed guard.
Governments must act to prevent the evisceration of life in the Gaza Strip, and to end the violence and occupation. All parties must disavow violence against civilians, adhere to international humanitarian law and pursue peace.
States must use every available political, economic, and legal tool at their disposal to intervene. Rhetoric and half measures are not enough. This moment demands decisive action.
The UN enshrined international law as the cornerstone of global peace and security. If Member States continue to treat these legal obligations as optional, they are not only complicit but are setting a dangerous precedent for the future. History will undoubtedly judge this moment as a test of humanity. And we are failing. Failing the people of Gaza, failing the hostages, and failing our own collective moral imperative."
CEO SIGN OFF (alphabetical)
- Arthur Larok, Secretary General of ActionAid International
- Othman Moqbel, Chief Executive Officer, Action For Humanity
- Joyce Ajlouny, General Secretary of American Friends Service Committee
- Sean Carroll, President and CEO of Anera
- Reintje Van Haeringen, Executive Director CARE International
- Jonas Nøddekær, Secretary General of DanChurchAid
- Charlotte Slente, Secretary General of the Danish Refugee Council
- Manuel Patrouillard, Managing Director, Humanity & Inclusion - Handicap International
- Jamie Munn, Executive Director, International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA)
- Waseem Ahmad, CEO, Islamic Relief Worldwide
- Joseph Belliveau, Executive Director of MedGlobal
- Joel Weiler, Executive Director of Médecins du Monde France
- Nicolás Dotta, Executive Director of Médecins du Monde Spain
- Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières International
- Kenneth Kim, Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee Canada
- Ann Graber Hershberger, Executive Director, Mennonite Central Committee US
- Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council
- Amitabh Behar, Oxfam International Executive Director
- Simon Panek, CEO, People in Need
- Inger Ashing, CEO of Save the Children International
- Donatella Vergara, President of Terre des Hommes Italy
- Rob Williams, CEO of War Child Alliance
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'It Is Clear': UN Commission Finding Confirms Israel Committing Genocide in Gaza
“To do nothing is not neutrality,” said the head of the commission. “It is complicity.”
Sep 16, 2025
A commission of independent experts at the United Nations on Tuesday said Western countries must stop providing military aid to Israel as it released an extensive report confirming that the Israeli government is carrying out a genocide in Gaza—joining international and Israeli human rights groups and numerous genocide experts that have come to the same conclusion in recent months.
"The commission concludes on reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit the following actus reus of genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip," said the UN Commission of Inquiry, citing four of the five "genocidal acts" defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
In its bombardment of Gaza, the three-member panel found, Israel has killed members of a group, caused serious bodily and mental harm, deliberately inflicted conditions to destroy the group, and acted to prevent births.
The only genocidal act classified under the Genocide Convention that the commission did not find evidence of in Gaza was the forcible transfer of children from one group to another.
Under the Convention, committing just one or more genocidal act constitutes a genocide.
The report cited an Israeli attack on Gaza's largest fertility clinic in December 2023, which reportedly destroyed 4,000 embryos and 1,000 sperm samples and fertilized eggs, as evidence that Israel has acted to prevent Palestinian births in Gaza. More than 18,000 Palestinian children have also been killed in Israel's assault.
Navi Pillay, the commission chair and former UN high commissioner for human rights, emphasized the key finding that Israeli officials have demonstrated their "intent" to commit genocide.
"It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention," said Pillay in a statement.
The commission report cited comments by former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in October 2023, when he said Israel would impose "a complete siege" on Gaza with "no electricity, no water, no food, no fuel" entering the exclave in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023.
"We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly," said Gallant at the time. The near-total blockade on humanitarian aid that resulted from his order has killed more than 400 people including at least 145 children so far, with many dying in recent months.
Gallant's comments were just one example of Israeli officials' intent to hold Gaza's entire population of 2.2 million Palestinians accountable for the actions of Hamas in October 2023. Israeli President Isaac Herzog explicitly said that the entire group was "responsible" and said there were no "civilians who were not aware and not involved" in the attack on southern Israel.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also called on Israeli soldiers to "remember what Amalek did to you," a reference to the Amalekites in the Hebrew Bible, whom God commanded the Israelites to exterminate.
"The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons who have orchestrated a genocidal campaign for almost two years now with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza,” Pillay said in a statement.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have killed more than 65,000 Palestinians since beginning the assault on Gaza—attacking hospitals, schools, and refugee camps while claiming that Hamas operates out of civilian infrastructure. Doctors have reported operating on many children who have gunshot wounds to the head and chest—suggesting they were deliberately targeted. Israeli soldiers have also described being ordered to shoot civilians.
Pillay said in an interview with Zeteo that, under the Genocide Convention, countries are legally obligated to step in and take action to stop Israel from continuing the genocide.
"It's not a choice," said Pillay. "It's an obligation that states have under the Genocide Convention, and they are all parties to that."
In an op-ed at The New York Times, Pillay wrote: "Every state has an obligation to prevent genocide wherever it occurs. That obligation requires action: halting the transfer of weapons and military support used in genocidal acts, ensuring unimpeded humanitarian assistance, stopping the mass displacement and destruction, and using all available diplomatic and legal means to stop the killing."
"To do nothing is not neutrality," she said. "It is complicity."
The report was released as the IDF launched a ground offensive to take control of Gaza City, killing at least 68 Palestinians in the city on Tuesday.
Forty percent of the city's residents have been forced to flee south to a coastal encampment in al-Mawasi, which has repeatedly been struck by Israeli forces despite being declared a "safe zone." Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are living in the tent encampment without access to sanitation, safe water, or basic services.
"They have to run out of their homes in the middle of the night with nothing other than the clothes that they’re wearing, seeking shelter towards the coast of Gaza City," reported Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud in a dispatch from Gaza City on Tuesday. "Fighter jets are hovering at a very dangerously low level in the past hour or two. The sky remains filled with the constant hum of drones, leaving residents unable to rest."
"What we are witnessing is a systematic, unfolding terror inflicted on this population," said Mahmoud. "They live in constant fear that their building will be next and they will lose everything and find themselves on the road again to displacement."
The offensive in Gaza City comes weeks after Netanyahu confirmed that his government is planning a full takeover of the Gaza Strip, defying international law.
The UN commission's findings on Tuesday could be used by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court, which has a warrant out for the arrests of Netanyahu and Gallant and has accused them of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and the International Court of Justice, which is hearing a genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel.
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