This blog is now closing. You can read Julian Borger’s full report on the latest developments in Gaza here and Emma Graham-Harrison’s report on a UN meeting to hear accounts of sexual violence committed by Hamas on 7 October here.
It’s not good for the US to be “identified with so much killing, former Irish president Mary Robinson has told CNN in the wake of a statement by the Elders group calling on the US and other countries to reconsider their military aid to Israel.
Robinson, who is the chair of the Elders group of global leaders and a former UN human rights commissioner, told the US broadcaster:
We as Elders are asking that countries that provide military aid, notably the United States to Israel, now have to urgently review military assistance and put in place conditions for any future provision.
I think it’s really necessary. I’ll tell you why – if this doesn’t happen, then the United States owns the problem. And that is not good for the United States, that the United States would be identified with so much killing.
In their statement on Monday, the Elders – a group founded by Nelson Mandela – called for government to set conditions for any future provision of arms to Israel. They warned that the military campaign in Gaza risked “fuelling an escalating cycle of mass atrocities”.
It continued:
Israel’s disproportionate response to the horrendous terror attacks by Hamas on 7 October – which the Elders unequivocally condemned - has reached a level of inhumanity towards Palestinians in Gaza that is intolerable.
