Western States Encourage Belligerents by Arming Israel, HRW Chief Says

Tirana Hassan, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, addresses the audience on the impact of Latin America’s migration policies, in Bogota, Colombia September 11, 2024. REUTERS/Nathalia Angarita/File Photo
Tirana Hassan, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, addresses the audience on the impact of Latin America’s migration policies, in Bogota, Colombia September 11, 2024. REUTERS/Nathalia Angarita/File Photo
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Western States Encourage Belligerents by Arming Israel, HRW Chief Says

Tirana Hassan, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, addresses the audience on the impact of Latin America’s migration policies, in Bogota, Colombia September 11, 2024. REUTERS/Nathalia Angarita/File Photo
Tirana Hassan, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, addresses the audience on the impact of Latin America’s migration policies, in Bogota, Colombia September 11, 2024. REUTERS/Nathalia Angarita/File Photo

The head of Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday that states supplying weapons to Israel as it pursues conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon despite evidence of violations of international law are empowering belligerents elsewhere.

Tirana Hassan, HRW's Executive Director, said that countries like the United States, Germany and Britain could influence Israel's actions and should do so by ending arms sales.

"If there continues to be military support to the Israeli Defense Force and they (Western governments) know that these weapons are being used in the commission of war crimes, then that should be enough for weapons sales and transfers to stop," she told Reuters in an interview.

"At this stage, the parties that could have some sort of influence and curb the behavior of the warring parties, when it comes to Israel, it's the US it's the UK, and it's Germany, and it's through weapons sales and transfers."

Israel says it takes care to avoid harming civilians and denies committing abuses and war crimes in the conflicts with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

It says its enemies are fighting amongst civilian populations, making its operations more difficult, and that it is acting in self-defense. Reuters has asked the Israeli authorities for comment on Hassan's remarks.

Hassan said that when states which abused rights saw there were no consequences, they felt emboldened to continue.

Governments supplying them with weapons were undermining their own credibility as defenders of international law and human rights as well as the credibility of the international system, she said.

"It sends a message that these rules apply differently to us and our allies as they do to others, and that has really serious consequences," she said.

This contradiction when Western countries were demanding accountability for Russia's invasion of Ukraine was being exploited by countries like Russia and China, she said.

"They are very quick to point out double standards from the West and are trying to use that to undermine the system."

Hassan spoke to Reuters as the UN rights office released a report on the death toll in the Israel-Hamas Gaza war where it said nearly 70% of verified fatalities were women and children.

Palestinian authorities say that more than 43,500 people have been killed in Gaza in the 13-month war triggered by Hamas attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

"This should now motivate the world into action. There is really no justification for the killing of children," Hassan said.

On Oct. 13, Washington imposed a deadline for its ally Israel to improve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza or face potential restrictions on US military aid.

Asked about the likely impact of the election of Donald Trump in the United States, she said there was "little assurance" of his commitment to international law during his previous tenure as president.

"Now we have seen in some of the statements on the campaign trail threats of mass deportation of millions of people and this sends a very worrying message," she added.



Pope Hopes to Visit Türkiye in 2025 to Mark 1,700 Years since the Council of Nicaea

Pope Francis asperges the coffing with the body of late Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot during his funeral in St. Peter’s Basilica at The Vatican Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Francis asperges the coffing with the body of late Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot during his funeral in St. Peter’s Basilica at The Vatican Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
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Pope Hopes to Visit Türkiye in 2025 to Mark 1,700 Years since the Council of Nicaea

Pope Francis asperges the coffing with the body of late Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot during his funeral in St. Peter’s Basilica at The Vatican Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)
Pope Francis asperges the coffing with the body of late Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot during his funeral in St. Peter’s Basilica at The Vatican Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Francis said on Thursday that he hopes to travel to Türkiye next year to commemorate the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, Christianity’s first ecumenical council.

The visit to Nicaea, today located in İznik on a lake southeast of Istanbul, would come during Francis’ big Holy Year, the once-every-quarter-century celebration of Christianity, according to The AP.

Francis is likely to use the occasion — the anniversary of a council before the Great Schism of 1054, which divided the church between East and West — to once again reach out to Orthodox Christians. Nicaea is one of seven ecumenical councils that are recognized by the Eastern Orthodox.

The spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Bartholomew I, said in September that he expects Francis would visit to commemorate the anniversary in May 2025.

Under Emperor Constantine I, the 325 Council of Nicaea gathered some 300 bishops, according to the Catholic Almanac. Among the outcomes was the Nicaean Creed, a statement of faith that is still recited by Christians today.

Francis announced his hope to visit Nicaea during an audience Thursday with the Vatican’s International Theological Commission. He told the theologians that the Council of Nicaea was a “milestone in the history of the church but also of humanity as a whole.”

Francis made his first visit to Türkiye in 2014 and met with Bartholomew there, as well as earlier that year in Jerusalem and on several occasions at the Vatican since.