Elham Asaad Buaras
More than 380 acclaimed writers and cultural figures — including Booker Prize winner Ian McEwan CBE, Whitbread First Novel Award winner Zadie Smith, and BAFTA-winning screenwriter Russell T Davies OBE — have signed a powerful open letter describing Israel’s war on Gaza as genocidal and calling for urgent international action.
Published on May 28, the letter has drawn global attention for its unflinching language and its high-profile signatories. Among them are award-winning authors such as Jeanette Winterson CBE, William Dalrymple FRSL, Brian Eno, Elif Shafak, Irvine Welsh, and Costa Book of the Year winner Monique Roffey. The signatories assert that “the use of the words ‘genocide’ or ‘acts of genocide’ to describe what is happening in Gaza is no longer debated by international legal experts or human rights organizations.”
Citing findings from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations Human Rights Council, the letter states that these bodies have “clearly identified” acts of genocide committed by Israeli forces. It further highlights the inflammatory statements of Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, which, it says, “openly express genocidal intentions.”
The signatories demand the immediate and unrestricted delivery of food and medical aid in Gaza under UN supervision and call for a ceasefire “which guarantees safety and justice for all Palestinians, the release of all Israeli hostages, and the release of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners arbitrarily held in Israeli jails.” They warn that continued inaction by the Israeli government should result in international sanctions.
The letter was coordinated by authors Horatio Clare, Kapka Kassabova, and Monique Roffey, with contributions from a dozen British writers. It draws from an earlier statement by Palestinian writer Karim Kattan, published in Libération and signed by 300 Francophone writers earlier this week.
Opening with a poem by Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada — who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2023 — the letter quotes from A Star Said Yesterday: “And if one day, O Light / All the galaxies / Of the entire universe / Had no more room for us / You would say: ‘Enter my heart, / There you will finally be safe.’” The signatories reflect that Abu Nada “imagined for the people of Gaza a cosmic refuge – something utterly unlike the constant lethal danger they now face.”
The authors reject the abstraction often used to describe the conflict, writing: “Palestinians are not the abstract victims of an abstract war. Too often, words have been used to justify the unjustifiable, deny the undeniable, defend the indefensible. Too often, too, the right words – the ones that mattered – have been eradicated, along with those who might have written them.”
They emphasise that “genocide” is not a slogan but “carries legal, political, and moral responsibilities.” Quoting the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the letter warns: “While states debate terminology – is it or is it not genocide? – Israel continues its relentless destruction of life in Gaza, through attacks by land, air and sea, displacing and massacring the surviving population with impunity.”
According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 53,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since 7 October 2023. The letter also acknowledges the Hamas-led attack that triggered the war, in which over 1,200 Israelis were killed. It notes, “Just as it is true to call the atrocities committed by Hamas against innocent civilians on 7 October 2023 crimes of war and crimes against humanity, so today it is true to name the attack on the people of Gaza an atrocity of genocide.”
Rejecting silence and complicity, the writers declare: “We refuse to be a public of bystander-approvers. This is not only about our common humanity and all human rights; this is about our moral fitness as the writers of our time, which diminishes with every day we refuse to speak out and denounce this crime.” The letter firmly denounces antisemitism and all forms of hatred, stating: “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 signatories express solidarity “with the resistance of Palestinian, Jewish, and Israeli people to the genocidal policies of the current Israeli government.”
Among the other signatories are Scottish PEN, Jonathan Coe (winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize), Susie Orbach, Kevin Barry (International Dublin Literary Award), Benjamin Myers (Walter Scott Prize), Andrew O’Hagan FRSL, Sarah Bernstein (shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize), Philip Marsden, Fiammetta Rocco, Lucy Jones, India Knight, Nick Laird, Nina Stibbe, Seán Hewitt, Xiaolu Guo, Chris Power, Joe Dunthorne, and Dame Marina Warner DBE.
The letter concludes with a stark warning, “This genocide implicates us all. We bear witness to the crimes of genocide, and we refuse to approve them by our silence.”
Photo: Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, Jeanette Winterson CBE, Russell T Davies OBE, Elif Shafak, and William Dalrymple FRSL are among more than 380 acclaimed writers and cultural figures who signed an open letter describing Israel’s war on Gaza as genocidal and calling for urgent international action. (Credit Wiki Commons)
