Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians in the Gaza
Strip has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians - almost half of
them children. 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced,
many of whom multiple times. Nowhere in Gaza is safe: entire
residential neighbourhoods have been levelled, UN schools
sheltering the displaced, and hospitals treating the wounded, have
been repeatedly targeted. Palestinians in Gaza are facing famine
due to Israel's blockade and its targeting of life-sustaining
infrastructure. In June 2024, UN experts declared that
“Israel’s intentional and targeted starvation campaign
against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and
has resulted in famine across all of Gaza.”
In January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the world
court, handed down an interim ruling affirming there is plausible
evidence Israel is committing genocidal acts against the
Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. As a State Party to the
Genocide Convention, the UK has a binding obligation to employ all
means reasonably available to prevent and deter further genocidal
acts.
In June, UN experts issued a statement demanding that both states
and companies stop all arms transfers to Israel. In issuing their
call, they outlined that financial institutions, such as banks and
pension funds, investing in arms companies supplying Israel must
cease, writing that financial institutions “failure to
prevent or mitigate their business relationships with these arms
manufacturers transferring arms to Israel could move from being
directly linked to human rights abuses to contributing to them,
with repercussions for complicity in potential atrocity
crimes.”
In July the ICJ confirmed that Israel's occupation of Palestinian
land and treatment of Palestinians is unlawful and that it is under
an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence “as
rapidly as possible.” It also stated that Israel is
“under an obligation to cease immediately all new settlement
activities and to evacuate all settlers from the Occupied
Palestinian Territory.”
We, the undersigned, call on the Council to:
Divest the Local Government Pension Scheme fund administered by the
council from companies complicit in Israel’s genocide and
apartheid against Palestinians. This includes arms companies
supplying Israel with weapons and military technology; companies
providing infrastructure for Israel’s unlawful military
occupation of Palestinian land; and companies conducting business
activity in Israel’s illegal settlements on stolen
Palestinian land.
End procurement contracts with companies complicit in
Israel’s attacks. For example, terminate all banking
arrangements with Barclays, which provides substantial financing to
companies supplying Israel with weapons used in its attacks on
Palestinians.
The recent defeat of the previous government’s draconian
attempts to restrict the right of public bodies to take ethical
investment and procurement decisions means that there is no barrier
to the council exercising its profound moral obligation not to
contribute to Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian
rights.
This ePetition runs from 28/09/2024 to 11/02/2025.
93 people have signed this ePetition.