Interviews with former OHCHR Attorney, Craig Mokhiber and Palestinian Christian, Hammam Farah

Israeli snipers kill two Christian women in siege of the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza

The following video for the Electronic Intifada’s livestream from Friday, 22 December with an update on Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza includes must listen interviews with former OHCHR Human rights attorney Craig Mokhiber and Hammam Farah, a Toronto-based psychotherapist who is a Palestinian Christian.

As was widely reported, Craig Mokhiber resigned from his position as the New York director for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the 28th of October with a powerful resignation letter in which he excoriated the UN for it’s wholly inadequate response to Israel’s full-scale war on Gaza.

In his 28 October 2023 letter to OHCHR leader, Volker Türk, Mr. Mokhiber commented on Netanyahu’s declaration that Israel had embarked on the “second stage” of its war against Hamas that had already killed thousands of Palestinians in Gaza by the end of October. He further stated in part the following.

I write at a moment of great anguish for the world, including for many of our colleagues. Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it. As someone who has investigated human rights in Palestine since the 1980s, lived in Gaza as a UN human rights advisor in the 1990s, and carried out several human rights missions to the country before and since, this is deeply personal to me.

I also worked in these halls through the genocides against the Tutsis, Bosnian Muslims, the Yazidi, and the Rohingya. In each case, when the dust settled on the horrors that had been perpetrated against defenseless civilian populations, it became painfully clear that we had failed in our duty to meet the imperatives of prevention of mass atrocities, of protection of the vulnerable, and of accountability for perpetrators. And so it has been with successive waves of murder and persecution against the Palestinians throughout the entire life of the UN.

High Commissioner, we are failing again.

As a human rights lawyer with more than three decades of experience in the field, I know well that the concept of genocide has often been subject to political abuse. But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate. In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units. Across the land, Apartheid rules.

This is a text-book case of genocide. The European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine. What’s more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations “to ensure respect” for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel’s atrocities. (Continued here.)

The interview with Hammam Farah begins with a brief discussion about British Israeli Settler, Fleur Hassan-Nahoum who is the deputy mayor of Jerusalem. During her interview with LBC's Nick Ferrari she stated emphatically that, “there are no Christians” in Gaza as they had been "driven out by Hamas.”

When asked about reports that there are snipers waiting outside a church in Gaza, Ms Hassan-Nahoum said: "I saw the reports this morning. The church? There are no churches in Gaza."

This is the video of Nick Ferrari’s heated debate with Fleur regarding who is winning the propaganda war in the Israel-Gaza conflict.

The ladies at Navara Media provide a good and interesting discussion and analysis of what happened at the Catholic church in Gaza which most certainly exists. The video begins with a clip of MP Layla Moran’s interview with the BBC about her family members who had been sheltering in the Holy Family Catholic church in Gaza with some 300 others when two women were shot and killed by Israeli snipers.

Both the Pope and the Cardinal of Westminster have spoken out about this dire reality which Mayor Fleur chooses to deny.

The Middle East Monitor article, Israel snipers kill two Christian women in siege of Catholic Church in Gaza published 18 December, states in part the following.

The killing of the two Christian women has been condemned by many, including Pope Francis, who lamented yesterday “Unarmed civilians are the objects of bombings and shootings. And this happened even inside the Holy Family Parish complex, where there are no terrorists, but families, children, people who are sick or disabled, nuns.”

Francis said the two women were killed by “snipers” and also referred to the Patriarchate’s statement that a convent of nuns of the order founded by Mother Teresa was damaged by Israeli tank fire. He indicated that Israel’s actions and imposition of siege on the church are akin to “terrorism”.

During his interview with the Electronic Intifada, Hammam Farah confirms that he was born in Palestine and continues to have family who live there with whom he is in touch when possible. According to Hammam, approximately 15-20% of the people in Gaza are Christians who are also involved in the battle for indigenous Palestinian rights and the right of return. He says that it is by design that most people do not know that there are Christian Palestinians. Hammam also talks about his great aunt who had been sheltered at the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza.

Hammam posted this tweet last night after his EI interview.

I highly recommend watching yesterday’s Electronic Intifada news and analysis from day 77 of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Please note that during the EI livestream they became aware that the UN Security Council had passed a questionable resolution which Craig Mokhiber he had been informed was in the works on Thursday. He comments upon it in this excerpt, the video clip of which I have embedded below.

I will be posting a separate blog about this new UN resolution.

Related post:

"Gaza starves as death toll climbs past 20,000" by Maureen Clare Murphy