Reply to comment

As an Israeli human rights activist , whose grandparents were perished in the Warsaw ghetto, I genuinely welcome the insightful letters by Yale Kahn and Tom Gooding . Like Yael Kahn I was virtually appalled by Claude Coopersmith's letter (20 September ) and its gratuitous attack on a letter by the octogenarian humanist - Tom Gooding'( Islington Tribune 10 September) . Mr Gooding truthfully highlighted the brutalities inflicted by the Israeli forces on the children of Gaza who were entrapped in a "Nazi-like ghettos" and whose suffering was powerfully demonstrated in an exhibition of paintings from Gaza, organised by Islington Friends of Yibna and hosted by Islington Town Hall ( re. Islington Tribune 15 July) .

The children of Gaza are not different to any other children in Western society. Yet, as the powerful paintings by Gaza artists demonstrated , they have to study in bombed sites under the dim light of flickering candles and eat their rationed food portion in near darkness while longing for freedom to play , learn and live free of the shackles of their besieged enclave . They are children who live in constant fear, having seen their own friends and families killed, maimed and burnt to death by Israel's white phosphorus bombs and ground rockets which flattened Gaza's infra-structure .

David Cameron, in his recent denunciation of the unlawful blockade of Gaza, compared the enclave to" a prison -Camp". Similarly, the UN Human Rights Council said in its latest report (22nd September) that Israel's blockade of the Palestinian territory is "unlawful" as it causes a humanitarian crisis . Yet Western leaders seem paralysed by inaction and President Obama refused to invite Hamas- the democratically -elected Government of Gaza- to the ongoing peace negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

It is left for the members of civil society to engage in a non-violent protest which exerts pressure on the State of Israel and urge a boycotting of trade with the illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories - as the TUC's resolution has recently called for.

Are we to ignore the call of conscience and leave the children of Gaza and the Palestinian people to their doomed fate at the hands of the Israeli military?

Ruth Tenne (Israeli human rights activist)