MORE than 30 nations gather in Bogota, Colombia tomorrow for an “Emergency Conference” to bring a halt to the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.

UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who is attending the conference, said the gathering “will go down as the moment in history that states finally stood up to do the right thing.” 

The conference is called by The Hague Group which was set up in January this year.

Jointly convened by Colombia and South Africa, The Hague Group’s co-chairs, the conference brings together 32 states including Brazil, China, Cuba, Indonesia, Ireland, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Spain, Turkey and Venezuela.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro described the conference as an opportunity “to move from condemnation to collective action.”

Ahead of the conference Colombia’s Vice Foreign Minister Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir said: “The Palestinian genocide threatens our entire multilateral system.” 

Last week the US imposed sanctions on Ms Albanese, targeting her for what US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called her “illegitimate and shameful efforts” to promote International Criminal Court action against US and Israeli officials.

Amnesty International secretary-general Agnes Callamard hit back at the time, calling the US move “a shameless and transparent attack on the fundamental principles of international justice.”

Ms Albanese said: “I am honoured to travel to Bogota in support of The Hague Group and its pursuit of justice and peace — grounded in rights and freedoms — that an increasing number of countries are finally embracing after decades of empty political rhetoric.”

Ms Albanese will present expert testimony to the conference along with other UN special rapporteurs in briefings aimed at shaping co-ordinated legal and diplomatic measures to end the genocide in Gaza.

Efforts to build a firmer legal base to end the genocide are being worked on in the British Parliament.

Under the leadership of Baroness Helena Kennedy, a cross-party group of lawyers and politicians known as the standing group on atrocity crimes is aiming to create a clearer legal obligation on the British government to prevent genocides, and to determine if one is occurring rather than leaving such judgements to international courts.

In a launch statement, Baroness Kennedy described the approach of the current government as “partisan, piecemeal and protracted.”

She added: “We are witnesses to harrowing and destructive images daily of atrocity crimes despite the apparent commitment of states to the international rule of law.”

The co-chair of the Bogota conference, President Petro, said the gathering represents a critical point for international law itself. 

He wrote in the Guardian last week: “The choice before us is stark and unforgiving. 

“We can either stand firm in defence of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict, or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the weight of unchecked power politics.”

Roland Lamola, South Africa’s minister of international relations and co-operation, said that the formation of The Hague Group marked “a turning point in the global response to exceptionalism and the broader erosion of international law.” 

Mr Lamola added that the conference “will send a clear message: no nation is above the law, and no crime will go unanswered.”

South Africa brought a landmark case against Israel at the International Court of Justice alleging violations of the Genocide Convention by Israel. 

Several states later joined South Africa’s case, including Bolivia, Colombia and Namibia. Namibia and Malaysia blocked ships carrying arms to Israel from docking at their ports, while Colombia severed diplomatic ties with the Israeli government and suspended coal exports.

Last September, the United Nations general assembly voted to take action on “Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” with a 12-month deadline to deliver concrete obligations — investigations, prosecutions, sanctions, asset freezes, and cessation of imports and arms. 

Meanwhile, two prominent Israeli politicians have criticised plans by the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to set up what it calls a “humanitarian city” in southern Gaza.

Former prime ministers Yair Lapid and Ehud Olmert have described the proposal as amounting to interning Palestinians in a “concentration camp.”

Mr Lapid, the leader of Israel’s biggest opposition party, told Israeli Army Radio that “nothing good” would come out of the plans to establish the “humanitarian city” on the ruins of the city of Rafah.

He said: “It’s a bad idea from every possible perspective — security, political, economic, logistical.

“I don’t prefer to describe a humanitarian city as a concentration camp, but if exiting it is prohibited, then it is a concentration camp.”

Mr Lapid served as Israel’s prime minister for six months in 2022.

According to the Israeli government, the “humanitarian city” will initially house 600,000 displaced Palestinians currently living in tents in the overcrowded area of al-Mawasi along Gaza’s southern coast. But eventually, the enclave’s entire population of more than two million people would be forced to move there.

Mr Olmert, prime minister from 2006 to 2009, told the Guardian newspaper that the proposal was “a concentration camp.

“If they [Palestinians] will be deported into the new ‘humanitarian city’, then you can say that this is part of an ethnic cleansing. It hasn’t yet happened.

“When they build a camp where they plan to ‘clean’ more than half of Gaza, then the inevitable understanding of the strategy of this [is that] it is not to save Palestinians.”

Mr Olmert added that the idea was clearly “to deport them, to push them and to throw them away. There is no other understanding that I have at least.”

As talks aimed at securing a ceasefire in Gaza appear to have completely stalled Israeli forces have continued to ratchet up the numbers of Palestinians it is killing.

At least 47 Palestinians were killed by air attacks today, according to Gazan medical sources.

Among those 27 people were killed in strikes on central and southern Gaza.

Israel invaded Gaza after Hamas and its allies attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in an attack in which 1,139 people were killed and some 250 were taken hostage.

The Israeli invasion has killed more than 58,000 people and wounded 138,520, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.