SHARE
Japanese media is reporting that the Israeli government has refused to accept a written appeal for restraint in its military offensive against Iran from a coalition of groups representing survivors of the United States’ atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945.
|
The appeal was in a letter sent to the Israeli embassy in Tokyo by four hibakusha organisations, but was returned to them by the post office unopened. The appeal was made in the light of Israel’s and the US’s widescale air attacks on targets across Iran that have included Iran’s nuclear facilities, something that is explicitly banned under international law. Among the signatories was Shigemitsu Tanaka, the head of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council, the local branch of Nihon Hidankyo. He was one of three hibakusha who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 2024 on behalf of Nihon Hidankyo when it was awarded the prize for its campaigning to abolish nuclear weapons. Melissa Parke, the Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, said: “The illegal war on Iran by Israel and the US, two nuclear armed countries, that has targeted nuclear facilities, risking radiological contamination and a humanitarian disaster, is rightly attracting widespread condemnation from people around the world. Among these, the hibakusha, as the people who know first hand what nuclear weapons and radiation can do to human beings, deserve respect, including from the Israeli government which should listen and act accordingly.” A range of Japanese civil society organisations report that they have also had appeals to the Israeli Embassy in Japan returned unopened |
|
For further information and interview requests contact Alistair Burnett, ICAN's Head of Communications: [email protected] +41 78 238 7179 |
Further reading:
Almost three quarters of Swedes support joining UN Nuclear Ban Treaty and two thirds oppose hosting nuclear weapons – new poll finds
ICAN endorses Nobel Laureates’ Rome Declaration on AI and Nuclear Weapons
NATO leaders need to understand more nuclear weapons make them less safe – ICAN
Tonga becomes 100th country to join UN Nuclear Ban Treaty
Global spending on nuclear weapons increased 19% in 2025 to reach its highest recorded level at $118.8 billion
You might also like:
No related articles found.