UN rights chief calls on governments to pressure Israel over Gaza war

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has condemned Israel’s conduct in Gaza, calling it “crimes against humanity and genocide” at a Liberation Movements summit in Gauteng. He decried the deliberate starvation of Palestinian civilians and demanded immediate humanitarian access and global intervention.

Meanwhile, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk urged governments worldwide to leverage their influence on Israel to end the war in Gaza. Speaking ahead of a high-level Palestine conference in New York, Türk warned that failure to act could amount to complicity in international crimes.

The High-Level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution, co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, opens at the UN Headquarters on 28 July amid deepening humanitarian and political crises.