Prominent Jewish figures around the world are calling on the United Nations and world leaders to impose sanctions on Israel over what they describe as “unconscionable” actions amounting to genocide in Gaza.
Over 450 signatories, including former Israeli officials, Oscar winners, authors and intellectuals have signed an open letter demanding accountability over Israel’s conduct in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. The letter’s release comes as EU leaders meet in Brussels on Thursday amid reports they plan to shelve proposals for sanctions over human rights violations.
“We have not forgotten that so many of the laws, charters, and conventions established to safeguard and protect all human life were created in response to the Holocaust,” the signatories write. “Those safeguards have been relentlessly violated by Israel.”
Signatories include former speaker of the Israeli Knesset Avraham Burg, former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy, British author Michael Rosen, Canadian author Naomi Klein, Oscar-winning film-maker Jonathan Glazer, US actor Wallace Shawn, Emmy winners Ilana Glazer and Hannah Einbinder, and Pulitzer prize winner Benjamin Moser.
The signatories urge world leaders to uphold international court of justice (ICJ) and international criminal court rulings, avoid complicity in international law violations by halting arms transfers and imposing targeted sanctions, ensure adequate humanitarian aid to Gaza, and reject false claims of antisemitism against those advocating for peace and justice.
“We bow our heads in immeasurable sorrow as the evidence accumulates that Israel’s actions will be judged to have met the legal definition of genocide,” the letter reads.
The appeal follows a sharp shift in public opinion for US Jews and the wider electorate over the last few years. A Washington Post poll found that 61% of US Jews believe Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza, and 39% say it is committing genocide. Among the broader American public, 45% told the Brookings Institution they believe Israel is committing genocide, while a Quinnipiac survey in August found half of US voters share that view, including 77% of Democrats.
Other signatories to the letter include the Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov, playwright V (formerly known as Eve Ensler), American comedian Eric André, South African novelist Damon Galgut, Oscar-winning journalist and documentarian Yuval Abraham, Tony award winner Toby Marlow and Israeli philosopher Omri Boehm.
“Our solidarity with Palestinians is not a betrayal of Judaism, then, but a fulfillment of it,” the signatories write. “When our sages taught that to destroy one life is to destroy an entire world, they did not carve exceptions for Palestinians. We shall not rest until this ceasefire carries forward into an end of occupation and apartheid.”
Since 7 October 2023, at least 65,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 167,000 injured, according to Gaza’s health ministry, while the UN estimates that roughly 90% of the population is internally displaced. Two US Democratic senators, Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley, concluded after a fact-finding mission to the region in September that Israel was implementing “a systematic plan to destroy and ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza”, with the US complicit in these actions.
Their report detailed the near-total destruction of civilian infrastructure, the weaponization of food and systematic obstacles to humanitarian aid delivery.
The 10 October ceasefire has been shaken by repeated violations. The Palestinian news agency said Israel had violated the ceasefire 80 times and killed at least 80 Palestinians in the past 11 days. The Israeli military accused Hamas of violating the agreement, killing two Israeli soldiers in Rafah and delaying the return of hostages’ bodies.
The public letter says that the truce makes no reference to the West Bank, where settler violence continues, and the underlying conditions of occupation remain unaddressed.
More than 3,200 Palestinians have been injured in attacks in the West Bank this year, according to the latest UN humanitarian office report, and the UN documented 71 settler assaults during a single week in October. In one incident this week, a 55-year-old woman was hospitalized after being clubbed by a masked settler while picking olives, an attack captured on video.
The Israeli civil rights group Yesh Din has found that just 3% of investigations into settler violence between 2005 and 2024 led to convictions. Shortly after taking office, Donald Trump lifted the limited sanctions Joe Biden had imposed on dozens of violent settlers and settler groups.
The ICJ is expected to issue a new ruling this week clarifying Israel’s obligations in the occupied territories, following its July 2024 non-binding advisory opinion declaring the occupation unlawful. Yet EU foreign ministers are reportedly backing away from sanctions, despite findings by the bloc’s diplomatic service that there were “indications” Israel was breaching its human rights obligations under the EU-Israel association agreement.
