More than 1,400 Israeli academics have signed a petition calling on the government to end its deadly war on the Gaza Strip, Anadolu Agency reports.
“We, faculty and administrative staff at academic institutions in Israel, call on the Israeli government to end the war in Gaza without delay and ensure the immediate return of the hostages,” reads the petition, written in Hebrew and English.
As per a Middle East Monitor report, the petition, titled “A Call on the Israeli Government to End the War and Ensure the Return of the Hostages”, said returning Israeli captives held by Hamas and ending the war “are moral imperatives and align with Israeli interests”.
The signatories said the 7 October Hamas attack granted Israel “the right of self-defence against such acts within the limits of international law.”
“However, this initial purpose has been exhausted, partly because the government has deliberately avoided setting a strategic or political vision beyond the war, instead aiming for an undefined ‘complete victory’ which, even according to senior military officials, is not only unachievable but likely to result in the death of the hostages.”
The petition warned that the Israeli war is “causing tremendous harm to civilians in Gaza, starvation, and unprecedented destruction of infrastructure.”
“It leads to many Israeli casualties, mental harm to hundreds of thousands, enormous economic damage and a severe deterioration of the rule of law in Israel and the Occupied Territories,” it added.
More than 35,600 Palestinians have been killed, the vast majority of whom have been women and children, and nearly 79,900 others injured since last October.
More than seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which, in January, issued an interim ruling that ordered it to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
