14-12-2023 | di COOPI

LINK 2007: Cease fire in Gaza. Letter to President Meloni and Deputy Minister Tajani

On 12 December 2023, LINK 2007 sent a letter to the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, and to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajani, expressing deep concern about the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip and to call with determination for a prolonged ceasefire to halt the indiscriminate bombing:

We count on your attention to this appeal of ours and on your pressure at bilateral, European and multilateral levels in favour of a ceasefire. We unequivocally condemn the atrocities committed on 7 October by Hamas and Islamic Jihad and the kidnapping of Israeli citizens and others held as hostages in the Gaza Strip. The attacks shocked the world and we count on the unconditional release of all hostages"

underlines Roberto Ridolfi, president of LINK 2007. The Israeli government's response, although "understandable and inevitable, has immediately assumed - with the siege, the bombardments, the destruction, the mass displacements, the disregard for international humanitarian law, the dead and wounded - such a dimension as to produce a humanitarian catastrophe"' Ridolfi points out, expressing the apprehension of LINK's NGOs. Gaza has an extension of 365 square kilometres, a quarter of that of the City of Rome. Of the 2.3 million people who used to live there in conditions similar to a huge refugee camp, around 1.9 million have been forced to leave their homes.

Two months into the escalation of violence, more than 15,500 people are dead, including 6,300 children and 4,200 women. At least 40,000 are injured. Thousands of people, about half of them children, are missing and may be under the rubble. Food, water, fuel and medical assistance are arriving in dribs and drabs."

points out Ridolfi.

Doctors, health and humanitarian workers can no longer respond adequately to the population's needs or work safely. People even drink seawater. Waste water runs into the streets. The risk of epidemics is very high and could prove devastating for the population already exhausted by two months of war and conditions of severe deprivation".

LINK's NGOs also recall that International Humanitarian Law sets insurmountable limits even during war, "starting with the fundamental principle of the proportionality of any type of armed response" and that the Fourth Geneva Convention defines "it is a war crime to target civilians, to deny them food, water and protection, to strike hospitals, schools and civilian structures, from whatever side this is perpetrated. A ceasefire is indispensable. 15,000 dead and 45,000 wounded is already an absurd and unacceptable exaggeration, which is producing new hatred and resentment".

LINK's NGOs therefore call on President Meloni and Minister Tajani to take up this appeal, which joins the hundreds of thousands of other petitions all over the world.

 

LINK 2007 is a network grouping 16 of the most important and historical Italian Non-Governmental Organisations: AMREF, CESVI, CIAI, CISP, COOPI, COSV, ELIS, FONDAZIONE CORTI, ICU, INTERSOS, LE RÉSEAU, LVIA, MEDICI CON L'AFRICA CUAMM, SOLETERRE, WEWORLD, WORLD FRIENDS.

Cover photo: Ph Motaz Azaiza