Following new proof from IAGS on the Israeli Genocide LALIT calls on the Foreign Affairs Minister of Mauritius to act at once to isolate Israel

04.09.2025

Following new proof from International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) on the Israeli genocide against people of Gaza, Palestine, LALIT sent an Open Letter to the Foreign Affairs Minister of Mauritius  to act at once to isolate and cut all ties with Israel.

Here is copy of the letter.

To, Honourable Dhananjay Ramful, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade

Port Louis.

3 September, 2025

Dear Sir,

LALIT calls on you, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, to act at once to isolate Israel. We call, once again, for such action, this time on the basis of the new proof issued four days ago, on 31 August – as if proof were, at this stage, needed – that what Israel is conducting against the Palestinians in Gaza is, in fact, indeed full-blown “Genocide” as defined by law.

This new proof comes from the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), universally considered the world's leading association of genocide scholars. On 31 August it passed a formal Resolution (see text in toto below): “Declar[ing] that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948).”

Please could you consider proposing, at Friday’s Cabinet, that Mauritius, in public, call what Israel is doing “genocide”? This statement can be made based on this recent Resolution, and with reference also to the ICJ Preliminary Findings last year that, back then already, called it a “plausible” genocide. Today we witness outright annihilation. 

As you are aware, the full name of the Convention cited above includes the phrase “for thePREVENTION ... of the Crime of Genocide” (our caps) meaning that Mauritius signed up to “preventing” genocide without sitting around waiting for “proof” of what everyone in the world can already see to be true. Now, genocide already being committed, you must act to end it.

Countries that deny the fact that Israel is committing genocide in full view behave like the cowering subjects who say the Emperor’s new clothes are beautiful as he stands there before everyone stark naked. The difference in the case of Israel’s daily slaughter is that the consequences of continued denial are so truly abominable to behold. We have contributed so far, as a nation, to over 60,000 deaths, to these thousands of amputations, this wanton massacre of a classroom worth of Gaza children each day, these already hundreds of deaths by intentionally-inflicted starvation, this endless torture of civilians and this perpetual displacement of two million Palestinians – not dissimilar to the size of our population – herded around like so many animals, and then shot at when they fetch wretched food parcels from mercenaries employed for this task of setting up traps for the famished, and then shooting at them. The unintended direct consequence of Government’s reckless denial of the Genocide is that the new Government is gutting Mauritius’ moral standing in the world. And by roping our State to the sinking ship of the USA Empire under Trump, Israel’s only ally, we are acting against our own best interests, as well acting illegally and immorally. 

It is already late. Very late. Mauritius must act to stop the Israeli killing of civilians. Mauritius must make amends fast. 

What we call for

Once Mauritius recognizes, based on the facts determined by the experts in academia and in UN judicial and political systems, that Israel is committing genocide, it follows that Mauritius must at once cut all ties with Israel: diplomatic, commercial, social, touristic, academic, artistic and in sports. We call on you to reverse the alarming direction your Ministry took by withdrawing from already-agreed-upon “oral submissions” at the specific ICJ case designed to STOP Israel starving to death the Palestinians in Gaza. This is why we say you need to “make amends”.    

The stain this withdrawal has left upon Mauritius’ moral standing must be effaced by your actions at the Cabinet on Friday. 

Yours sincerely,

Ragini Kistnasamy and Lindsey Collen for LALIT

cc Hon Junior Minister Hambyrajen Narsinghen

The IAGS Resolution on the Situation in Gaza (taken from IAGS site)

Recognising that, since the horrific Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023, which itself constitutes international crimes, the government of Israel has engaged in systematic and widespread crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, including indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against the civilians and civilian infrastructure (hospitals, homes, commercial buildings, etc.) of Gaza, which, according to official UN estimates, at the date of this resolution, has killed more than 59,000 adults and children in Gaza; 

Recognising that these crimes are estimated to have left many thousands of people buried under the rubble or otherwise inaccessible, and most probably dead; 

Recognising that this bombing and other violence is estimated to have injured more than 143,000 people, with many maimed; 

Recognising that the actions of the Israeli government against Palestinians have included torture, arbitrary detention, and sexual and reproductive violence; deliberate attacks on medical professionals, humanitarian aid workers and journalists; and the deliberate deprivation of food, water, medicine, and electricity essential to the survival of the population; 

Recognising that Israel has forcibly displaced nearly all of the 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip multiple times, and demolished more than 90 percent of the housing infrastructure in the territory; 

Recognising that the consequences of these crimes have included destroying entire families and multiple generations of Palestinians; 

Recognising that Israel has destroyed schools, universities, libraries, museums, and archives, all of them essential to the continued existence of Palestinian collective well-being and identity; 

Recognising that Israel has killed or injured more than 50,000 children and that this destruction of a substantial part of a group constitutes genocide, as emphasized in a joint declaration of intervention in the International Court of Justice case of The Gambia v Myanmar by six countries—Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom— which states “that children form a substantial part of the groups protected by the Genocide Convention, and that the targeting of children provides an indication of the intention to destroy a group as such, at least in part. Children are essential to the survival of any group as such, since the physical destruction of the group is assured where it is unable to regenerate itself.”; 

Recognising that Israeli governmental leaders, war cabinet ministers, and senior army officers have made explicit statements of “intent to destroy”, characterizing Palestinians in Gaza as a whole as enemies and “human animals” and stating the intention of inflicting “maximum damage” on Gaza, “flattening Gaza,” and turning Gaza into “hell”; 

Recognising that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has endorsed the current US President's plan to forcibly expel all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, with no right of return, in what Navi Pillay, head of the UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, has said amounts to ethnic cleansing; 

Recognising that the deliberate destruction of agricultural fields, food warehouses, and bakeries and other violence that prevents food production, in conjunction with denial and restriction of humanitarian aid, indicate the intentional infliction of unlivable conditions resulting in starvation of Palestinians in Gaza; 

Acknowledging that, on 21 November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of Israel, in the court's ongoing investigation opened on 3 March 2021, of crimes committed on Palestinian territory since 13 June 2014, charging them with crimes identified in the Rome Statute, in the Gaza Strip from at least 8 October 2023, including the starvation of civilians, intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population, murder, and persecution; 

Whereas Israel's actions in response to the October 7 attack and subsequent holding of hostages have not only been directed against the Hamas group responsible for these, but have also targeted the entire Gazan population; 

Acknowledging that the International Court of Justice found in three provisional measures order in the case of South Africa v. Israel — January, March, and May 2024 — that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide in its attack in Gaza and ordered Israel to take all measures within its power to prevent and punish the direct and public incitement of genocide and to ensure the provision of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza; 

Acknowledging that leading global international law organizations and UN bodies, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Forensic Architecture, DAWN, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, have conducted extensive investigations and issued reports concluding that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza; 

Acknowledging that a number of Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish, and other scholarly experts working in Holocaust and Genocide Studies and in International Law have concluded that Israeli governmental and military actions constitute genocide; 

Acknowledging that international civil society has a responsibility to prevent genocide by encouraging and assisting states to fulfill their obligations under the Genocide Convention to prevent, suppress, and punish genocide; 

Acknowledging that putative security measures against members of a group are often pretext for mass killing and genocide as it has become in this case; 

Therefore, the International Association of Genocide Scholars: 

Declares that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948); 

Declares that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity as defined in international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; 

Calls upon the government of Israel to immediately cease all acts that constitute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity against Palestinians in Gaza, including deliberate attacks against and killing of civilians including children; starvation; deprivation of humanitarian aid, water, fuel, and other items essential to the survival of the population; sexual and reproductive violence; and forced displacement of the population; 

Calls upon the government of Israel to comply with the Provisional Measures orders of the International Court of Justice; 

Calls upon the state parties of the International Criminal Court to comply with their obligations, cooperate with the Court, and surrender any individual subject to an arrest warrant; 

Calls upon all states to actively pursue policies to ensure respect for their obligations under international law, including under the Genocide Convention, the Arms Trade Treaty and international humanitarian law, with regards to Israel and Palestine; 

and Calls upon the government of Israel and all other United Nations members to support a process of repair and transitional justice that will afford democracy, freedom, dignity, and security for all people of Gaza. 

Resolution passed 31 August 2025