Zadie Smith, Michael Rosen, Irvine Welsh and Jeanette Winterson are among more than 200 writers who have signed a letter calling for an “immediate and complete” boycott of Israel until the people of Gaza are given adequate food, water and aid.
Hanif Kureishi, Brian Eno, Elif Shafak, George Monbiot, Benjamin Myers, Geoff Dyer and Sarah Hall also signed the letter, which advocates the cessation of all “trade, exchange and business” with Israel.
Hunger-related deaths in Gaza have risen to 197, following last week’s alert from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) initiative that “the worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip”.
In early March Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza, preventing food, water and medical supplies from entering the territory. In mid-May, after growing international pressure, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said shipments would restart. However, records from Cogat, the Israeli agency that controls aid shipments into Gaza, show that the quantity of aid reaching the territory in May and June fell well below subsistence levels.
The writers “call on all people, institutions, governments and states to observe an immediate and complete boycott of all forms of trade, exchange and business with the state of Israel until the people of Gaza are adequately provided with drinking water, food and medical supplies, and until all other forms of relief and necessity are restored to the people of Gaza under the aegis of the United Nations”.
The letter, which was organised by the writers Horatio Clare and Sean Murray, has 207 signatories, including Laline Paull, Patrick Gale, Michel Faber and Marina Warner. It follows a May letter signed by hundreds of writers, also co-organised by Clare, stating that Israel’s attacks on Gaza amount to genocide.
The new letter reads: “We make this call because the words and feelings of millions of people and thousands of politicians worldwide have failed to bring about the feeding of the people of Gaza, the protection of civilians or their supply with humanitarian and medical aid.
“We regret that this boycott affects a great many individuals and groups in Israel and other countries who share our rejection of the policies of the government of Benjamin Netanyahu; individuals and groups whose pain and compassion for the people of Gaza we share.”
The writers propose that the boycott remains in place until the UN declares the civilian population of Gaza “is safe and in receipt of adequate food and aid”.
The letter also demands the “return of all hostages and those imprisoned without charge or trial on all sides”, an “end to settler violence against Palestinians on the West Bank” and “the immediate and permanent ceasefire and cessation of violence by Hamas and Israel”.
Campaign groups have been calling for boycotts against Israel for decades, with the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, established in 2005, encouraging economic, cultural and academic boycotts.
“We stand in solidarity with the resistance of Palestinian, Jewish and Israeli people to the genocidal policies of the current Israeli government”, the letter states.
“We note that prominent and respected Israeli and Jewish groups in Israel and other countries, including many of our fellow writers, have recently called for serious and impactful sanctions on Israeli institutions, to which we add, on, and only on, objectively culpable individuals. A boycott is the only sanction an individual can apply.
“In calling for and observing this boycott, we assert without reservation our absolute opposition to and loathing of antisemitism, of anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli prejudice.
“We reject and abhor attacks, hate and violence – in writing, speech and action – against Palestinian, Israeli, and Jewish people in all and any form.”
The letter concludes: “The children of Gaza, like all children, are the children of all of us, and the future of our world. In their name, we call for and observe this boycott.”
