London, MINA – UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has told the Parliament on Wednesday that Israel is not committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, Anadolu Agency reports.
During the Prime Ministerās Questions at the House of Commons, Independent lawmaker, Ayoub Khan, raised from Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, who recently claimed that the term genocide referred to āwhen millions of people lost their lives in comments like Rwanda, the Second World War in the Holocaustā and that using it to describe Gaza ānow undermines [its] seriousnessā.
Khan then said Lammyās words are not acceptable.
āArticle two of the United Nations Genocide Convention makes it explicitly clear that genocide is not about numbers, itās about intent. The intent of the Israeli government and the IDF has been explicitly clear in words and in actions over the past 400 days, killed more than 45,000 innocent men, women and children.ā
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The lawmaker said the Foreign Minister explicitly denied that genocide was even taking place and āsuggested that the Israeli army had not yet killed enough Palestiniansā to constitute genocide.
āWill the Prime Minister share his definition of genocide with this House?ā he asked.
In his response, Starmer said: āIt would be wise to start a question like that by reference to what happened in October of last year. Iām well aware of the definition of genocide, and that is why Iāve never described this as and referred to it as genocide.ā
Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories who is currently on a UK visit, has repeatedly affirmed her belief that what is happening qualifies as genocide. (T/RE1/P2)
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Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)