Chile launches international campaign to demand expulsion of Israeli occupation from United Nations
SANTIAGO, Nov. 20 (YPA) – Chilean civil society is preparing to launch one of the broadest human rights and civil initiatives aimed at holding Israel accountable within the United Nations system. This will be achieved through an international campaign calling for Israel’s expulsion from the UN, based on Article 6 of the UN Charter, due to what the campaign describes as “continuous and systematic violations” of international law and resolutions of the General Assembly and the Security Council.
The official launch of the campaign will take place on November 26th during a public event in the capital, Santiago. Signatures for the online petition have already been collected in recent days.
Campaign data indicates that the petition addressed to UN Secretary-General António Guterres has garnered over 57,000 signatures as of the time of this report, with a goal of reaching 100,000 signatures in the near future.
The organizers of the initiative say that the rapid response reflects “a broad popular reaction” to the dire humanitarian situation in Palestine and embodies “international civic pressure” to activate the international system after decades of inaction.
The letter describes what is happening in the Gaza Strip as a “compound war crime,” noting that the occupying power is killing Palestinians with bombs and missiles, destroying medical infrastructure, and causing the deaths of nearly two million people through starvation and thirst. It states that depriving the population of water, food, and medicine, and destroying and poisoning the land, constitutes one of the most serious documented crimes of the modern era.
The letter adds that the continued dealings of international and academic institutions with Israel are “unjustified and unacceptable,” and that Israel must be “immediately expelled from all international events, all institutional relations with it severed, and a comprehensive arms embargo imposed on weapons that contribute to the continuation of the genocide.”
The letter concludes: “With Gaza, humanity also dies. We want Palestine to live; it is the heart of the world.”