London: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has refused to be drawn on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n
It follows comments from Tom Fletcher, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, that the international community needs to \u201cact now\u201d to \u201cprevent genocide\u201d in the Palestinian enclave.<\/p>\n
Fletcher also told the UN Security Council that Israel has been \u201cdeliberately and unashamedly\u201d blocking aid from entering Gaza.<\/p>\n
Starmer was asked by Sky News at a press conference following a new set of agreements with the EU if he believes genocide is happening in Gaza.<\/p>\n
He did not answer the question directly, but said it is a \u201creally serious, unacceptable, intolerable situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
His words were echoed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was also in attendance and called for the \u201cunacceptable\u201d blockade by Israel to be \u201clifted now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Genocide Convention defines genocide as the \u201cintent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,\u201d including acts such as killings, causing physical or mental harm, or creating conditions in order to destroy an identified group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
London: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has refused to be drawn on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. It follows comments from Tom Fletcher, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, that the international community needs to \u201cact now\u201d to \u201cprevent genocide\u201d in the Palestinian enclave. Fletcher also told the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479692,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-479687","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n