Scores of academics, activists and celebrities are supporting a call for King Charles to overturn the decision by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust not to include Gaza among the genocides it will remember in this year’s official memorial.

The annual Holocaust Memorial Day (GMD) will take place on Monday 27 January but will not include Gaza in the list of genocides it will commemorate despite a call by the Islamic Human Rights Commission for it to mark “the genocide of our time”.

The letter to King Charles has been written by the Convivencia Alliance, a coalition of Jewish, Muslim and Christian organisations supporting a just peace in Palestine based on one democratic state. IHRC is a signatory to the letter which is supported by, among others, Roger Waters, Ken Loach, Prof. Avi Shlaim and Dr. Salman Abu Sitta.

The letter appeals to the king to “intercede for Palestinians in Gaza and use your influence to insist that the Holocaust Memorial Day acknowledges the current genocide”.

Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) is the charity established and funded by the UK Government to promote and support Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) in the UK. The king is a patron of the charity.

So far at least 46,000 people have been killed and thousands more injured in the Gaza genocide, many of them maimed for life. Some 40% of the victims are children and another 30% women. The territory itself has been decimated by relentless Israeli bombardment.

The International Court of Justice is investigating Israel for genocide while human rights groups and experts have concluded that Israel’s campaign of mass slaughter and destruction meets the legal definition of genocide.

“By what cruel logic can the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust refuse to acknowledge this genocide, while relying on the Genocide Convention 1948 – the main legal outcome of the 1939-1945 Holocaust?”, says the letter.

The full text of the letter with signatories and supporters is available to view here.

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