(Washington D.C., January 15, 2025): In response to reports that Israel and Palestinian groups in Gaza have agreed to a ceasefire that will include the release of Israeli captives, Palestinian detainees and prisoners, and the staged withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, DAWN issued the following statement:
"Israel bears primary responsibility for the devastation it has wrought, and it should bear the primary cost of reconstructing and rehabilitating the Gaza Strip, including reparations to the people whose lives have been destroyed," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of DAWN. "If the world again allows Israel to externalize the costs of its crimes in Gaza, nothing will dissuade it from repeating its belligerence and abuses."
"The United States bears grave responsibility for what Israel has done to the Palestinians in Gaza because it has consistently blocked every ceasefire effort in the United Nations and gifted Israel the billions of dollars of weapons and munitions Israel has used against Palestinians in Gaza," said Whitson.
"A ceasefire agreement does not mean that Israeli war criminals who orchestrated this genocide are off the hook, and we will continue to demand accountability for their crimes," said Raed Jarrar, DAWN's advocacy director. "The international community should also hold U.S. officials in the Biden administration accountable for aiding and abetting crimes against humanity with their ongoing support of Israel's war machine."
"Ending Israel's genocidal campaign against Palestinians in Gaza is of course, a long-overdue and welcome development but without guarantees that Israel can never again carry out such atrocities, it is but a single gulp of fresh air," said Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man, director of research for Israeli-Palestine at DAWN. "Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank need an international force to protect them from Israeli aggression and ensure they can exercise their inalienable right to self-determination."
