The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today said the International Court of Justice (ICJ) should add a reported massacre of Palestinians in Gaza to South Africa’s charge of genocide against the far-right Israeli government.
CAIR also demanded that the Biden administration condemn the massacre, call for a permanent ceasefire and act to begin repairing the damage done to America’s international reputation by the administration’s “complicity in genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
At least 30 bodies were found dumped inside a schoolyard in northern Gaza. Witnesses who discovered the bodies and identified them say they were blindfolded, legs and hands tied, with plastic handcuffs on their hands and legs and cloth tied around their eyes and heads.
In a statement, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Award said:
“The far-right Israeli government’s campaign of genocide in Gaza, and the Biden administration’s blind support for that genocide, are moral stains that will haunt our nation and the international community for generations to come. The Biden administration must end its complicity in genocide and ethnic cleansing by demanding a permanent ceasefire and a just resolution to the conflict that finally recognizes Palestinian humanity.
“This latest reported massacre of Palestinian civilians must be added to South Africa’s case before the International Court of Justice.”
He noted that CAIR recently called on President Biden to personally condemn an Israeli massacre of Palestinian civilians in Gaza who were waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza City.
In December, CAIR called Israel’s massacre of at least 70 people in a strike on Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp and murdered a number of pregnant women.
Also in December, CAIR calls for a United Nations investigation of allegations that Israeli forces in Gaza carried our summary executions of unarmed Palestinian men in front of their family members.
Last week, CAIR welcomed a preliminary ruling ICJ, the UN’s principal judicial body, that declares South Africa’s charge of genocide against the Israeli government plausible.
Earlier this week, CAIR condemned the Biden administration’s “morally depraved and glaringly inconsistent” decision to engage in collective punishment against Palestinians by cutting funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in response to unsubstantiated and suspiciously timed allegations made by the Israeli government.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com, CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com