Israeli Rights Group and Public Figures Call for Sanctions Over Gaza Starvation

Tel Aviv, MINA – Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, along with 31 prominent Israeli public figures, has issued a powerful call for international sanctions against Israel over its devastating campaign in Gaza, which the group claims constitutes a genocide.

At a press conference in Jerusalem on July 28, B’Tselem unveiled its damning report titled “Our Genocide”, asserting that the Israeli government is deliberately starving the population of Gaza and enacting policies of mass displacement, Middle East Monitor reported.

The open letter, signed by leading cultural and academic figures, including Oscar-winning filmmaker Yuval Abraham, former Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair, ex-Knesset speaker Avraham Burg, and Israel Prize recipients urges the global community to impose “crippling sanctions” on Israel until a permanent ceasefire is enforced.

“Our country is starving the people of Gaza to death and contemplating the forced removal of millions of Palestinians from the Strip,” the letter reads. “The international community must impose crippling sanctions on Israel until it ends this brutal campaign and implements a permanent ceasefire.”

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The call for action comes as Gaza’s death toll surpasses 60,000 over Israel’s 21-month military offensive, with starvation, bombings, and displacement accelerating across the territory. Disturbing images of emaciated children and targeted strikes on aid centers have sparked global outrage.

Coinciding with the letter’s release, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights Israel both published landmark reports concluding that Israel’s actions in Gaza amount to genocide. The B’Tselem report contextualizes the assault as part of a long-standing settler-colonial and apartheid regime, not an isolated military operation.

A chapter titled “Genocide as a Process” outlines how demographic engineering, ethnic cleansing, and systematic segregation reinforce Jewish supremacy across historic Palestine. The report claims the October 7 Hamas attack was used by Israel’s far-right leadership as a pretext for implementing full-scale genocidal policies.

“In the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River,” the report states, “the Israeli regime implements laws, practices, and violence designed to cement the supremacy of one group Jews over another Palestinians.”

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Despite mounting internal and international criticism, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to deny the existence of famine in Gaza, rejecting findings from UN agencies and comments even from President Donald Trump, who acknowledged “real starvation” in the enclave. []

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)

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