Nearly 7,500 Sheffield residents in a petition have urged the city council to \u201cstep up and take moral leadership\u201d over the Gaza crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Council\u2019s Petitions Scheme requires that a petition containing over 5,000 signatures from individuals who live, work or study in Sheffield, be the subject of debate at the Council meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a meeting on Wednesday 6th March, local Jewish baker Jonny Feldman presented the three key points from the petition that they wanted Sheffield City Council to adopt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said: \u201cWe welcome the council passing back in November a ceasefire motion, and before that the council recognised the state of Palestine, but it is not enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe crime of apartheid being committed by Israel is a crime against humanity. What we are witnessing in Gaza is the type of industrial slaughter we thought we would never see again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Within the petition, they want the city council to issue a statement saying that they stand in \u201cunity and solidarity\u201d with Palestinians, alongside declaring Sheffield an Israeli Apartheid Free Zone. The city council similarly did this in 1981 in relation to South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Israeli government denies allegations of apartheid and says it is following international law in its conflict with Hamas in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They also want the council to accept a detailed report published by independent human rights organisation Amnesty International about the conflict in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lead Coun Tom Hunt said: \u201cWhat is happening in Gaza is a tragedy \u2013 over 30,000 people, as has already been mentioned, have died, countless people have been injured and families have lost lives and livelihoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
LibDem Lead Coun Shaffaq Mohammed said: \u201cLook, I want this war to stop today, I want those poor people in Gaza to have access to aid but \u2013 I\u2019m being realistic and looking you in the eye \u2013 there\u2019s not a lot that we can actually do that\u2019s going to influence the Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He made it clear that the ceasefire was an international issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the contrary, Green Coun Alexi Dimond said: \u201cThis is the highest rate of killing since the Rwandan genocide. Despite our resolution, this council has not taken any public action or statements in support of Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a debate and a halt for party group leaders to hear legal advice, members voted 64-13 to refer the petition to the strategy and resources committee, rather than immediately make a decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Green councillors voted against.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nearly 7,500 Sheffield residents in a petition have urged the city council to \u201cstep up and take moral leadership\u201d over the Gaza crisis. The Council\u2019s Petitions Scheme requires that a petition containing over 5,000 signatures from individuals who live, work or study in Sheffield, be the subject of debate at the Council meeting. In a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,10],"tags":[56,55],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","tag-gaza","tag-sheffield-city-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shef-live.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}