My Take | Weekend carnage in Gaza shows Nagasaki mayor was right
- Latest killing of at least 80 Palestinians sheltering in a school should shame G7 and EU envoys who snubbed Friday peace ceremony over Israel’s exclusion
A day after American ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel led his Group of Seven and European counterparts to skip Nagasaki’s annual peace memorial ceremony of Friday in protest, Israel carried out another mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
An air strike killed at least 80 and injured dozens who were sheltering in a disused school. The lethal strike most likely used American-supplied bombs and other munition systems. Israel claimed it was targeting a Hamas command centre and that the terrorist group had been using the civilians as human shields.
No doubt more than 40,000 Palestinians have all died from being used as human shields – by Israel’s definition.
Emanuel and the other EU and G7 envoys – sans Japan – were outraged that the mayor of the atom-bombed Nagasaki, Shiro Suzuki, disinvited the Israeli ambassador, just as the Japanese city has done with those from Russia and Belarus over the war in Ukraine since 2022.
Emanuel and Israel’s ambassador, Gilad Cohen, claimed Nagasaki was sending the wrong message to the world.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s self-defence is not morally equivalent,” The New York Times quoted Emanuel as saying.