Almost 400 writers and authors from across the UK and Ireland have risen to condemn the ongoing violence in Gaza, calling for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian intervention. Signed by renowned authors including Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, and Marina Warner, the open letter explicitly labels the Israeli government's actions as genocide, echoing assessments from international human rights organizations. Drawing inspiration from the late Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada's poignant verse, these writers reject the rhetoric of abstraction and demand concrete action: unrestricted aid distribution, international sanctions, and a resolution that guarantees safety and justice for all Palestinians and Israelis.
We, the undersigned writers of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, ask our nations and the peoples of the world to join us in ending our collective silence and inaction in the face of horror.
A year and seven months ago, the Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada was killed by Israeli airstrikes. In her poem “A Star Said Yesterday,” she imagined for the people of Gaza a cosmic refuge — something utterly unlike the constant lethal danger they now face:
“And if one day, O Light
All the galaxies
Of the entire universe
Had no more room for us
You would say: “Enter my heart,
There you will finally be safe.”
The government of Israel has renewed its assault on Gaza with unrestrained brutality. Public statements by Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir openly express genocidal intentions. The use of the words “genocide” or “acts of genocide” to describe what is happening in Gaza is no longer debated by international legal experts or human rights organizations. Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, Human Rights Watch, the International Federation for Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Council, and many other specialists and historians have clearly identified genocide or acts of genocide in Gaza, enacted by the Israel Defence Force and directed by the government of Israel.
On behalf of the UN, and published by the office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, over 40 Special Rapporteurs and independent experts recently concluded: “While States debate terminology — is it or is it not genocide? — Israel continues its relentless destruction of life in Gaza, through attacks by land, air and sea, displacing and massacring the surviving population with impunity,” the experts said. “No one is spared — not the children, persons with disabilities, nursing mothers, journalists, health professionals, aid workers, or hostages. Since breaking the ceasefire, Israel has killed hundreds of Palestinians, many daily — peaking on 18 March 2025 with 600 casualties in 24 hours, 400 of whom were children.”
Palestinians are not the abstract victims of an abstract war. Too often, words have been used to justify the unjustifiable, deny the undeniable, defend the indefensible. Too often, too, the right words — the ones that mattered — have been eradicated, along with those who might have written them.
The term “genocide” is not a slogan. It carries legal, political, and moral responsibilities. Just as it is true to call the atrocities committed by Hamas against innocent civilians on 7 October 2023 crimes of war and crimes against humanity, so today it is true to name the attack on the people of Gaza an atrocity of genocide, with crimes of war and crimes against humanity, committed daily by the Israeli Defence Forces, at the command of the government of the State of Israel.
Recently, Alexis Deswaef, vice-president of International Federation of Human Rights and a lawyer at the International Criminal Court, recalled the concept of the “bystander-approver,” drawn from the special tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. It refers to a senior official who looks on, remains silent, and whose silence is interpreted as a green light by the perpetrators.
We refuse to be a public of bystander-approvers. This is not only about our common humanity and all human rights; this is about our moral fitness as the writers of our time, which diminishes with every day we refuse to speak out and denounce this crime.
In taking this stand, we assert without reservation our absolute opposition to and loathing of antisemitism, of anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli prejudice. We reject and abhor attacks, hate and violence — in writing, speech and action — against Palestinian, Israeli, and Jewish people in all and any form. We stand in solidarity with the resistance of Palestinian, Jewish, and Israeli people to the genocidal policies of the current Israeli government.
We ask all people to join in our call for compassion, for reason and for mediation. For Hiba, for the nearly 54,000 Gazans killed, and for the survivors — starving, wounded, and scarred for life:
1. We demand the immediate unrestricted distribution of food and medical aid throughout Gaza by the UN.
2. We demand that sanctions be imposed on the State of Israel if the Israeli government does not heed this call, which is also the world’s call, for an immediate ceasefire.
3. We demand a ceasefire which guarantees safety and justice for all Palestinians, the release of all Israeli hostages, and the release of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners arbitrarily held in Israeli jails.
This genocide implicates us all. We bear witness to the crimes of genocide, and we refuse to approve them by our silence.
Signed:
Jeanette Winterson
Gillian Clarke
Menna Elfyn — as President, Wales PEN Cymru
Scottish PEN
Ricky Monahan Brown
Owen Sheers
Kevin Barry
Tom Bullough
Patrick Gale
Adam Nicolson
Sarah Hall
Sophy Roberts
Victoria Shepherd
John Lister-Kaye
Amy Liptrot
Rob Cowen
Melissa Harrison
Musa Okwonga
Benjamin Myers
Adelle Stripe
Helena Drysdale
Clare Shaw
Jay Griffiths
Louisa Young
Glyn Maxwell
Nina Stibbe
Brian Eno
Shazea Quraishi
Stella Duffy
Jan Woolf
Leone Ross
Shelley Silas
Aliya Gulamani
Inua Ellams
Lise Mayer
Chris Power
Helen Jukes
Joe Dunthorne
Diana Evans
Deborah Moggach
Philip Hoare
Andrew O’Hagan
Toby Litt
Xiaolu Guo
Gareth Evans
Seán Hewitt
Ian Grosz
Cathy Galvin
Katy Evans Bush
Daisy Buchanan
Ian McEwan
Iona Macduff
India Knight
Lucy Atkins
Emma Reynolds
Polly Atkin
Giselle Leeb
Philip Marsden
Merryn Glover
Madeline Dewhurst
Colin Teevan
Anna C Wilson
Joanna Nadin
Claire Fuller
Rachel Spence
Sunnah Khan
Elen Caldecott
Tom Jeffreys
Abir Mukherjee
Anna Mazzola
Louise Doughty
Andrew Taylor
Rebecca Stonehill
William Dalrymple
Wendy O’Shea-Meddour
Lou Abercrombie
Zadie Smith
Nick Laird
Kerry Hudson
Courttia Newland
James Miller
Karen McCarthy Woolf
Gregory Norminton
Paul McVeigh
Laline Paull
Lucy Coats
Guy Gunaratne
Sarah Winman
Monisha Rajesh
Patrick McGuinness
Angharad Price
Gareth Howell-Jones
Rose Kelly
Jeff Young
Niall Griffiths
Nicholas Royle
Wayne Price
Tom Parfitt
Kerri Andrews
Nora Chassler
Dilys Rose
Kathleen Jamie
A L Kennedy
Hanif Kureshi
Ron Butlin
Aonghas Pàdraig Caimbeul (Angus Peter Campbell)
Kate Mosse
Linda Cracknell
Mark Cocker
Sally Huband
Moira Buffini
Ian Woolf
Elif Shafak
Fiona Sampson
Nick Jubber
Christopher Brookmyer
Jamie Jauncey
Sarah Bernstein
Suswati Basu
Alice Albinia
Tom Pow
Rebecca Lenkiewicz
Cal Flyn
Rory MacLean
Will Atkins
Anna Abney
Madeleine Bunting
Alec Finlay
Christine Deluca
Regi Clare
Mario Relich
David Constantine
Lizzie Eldridge
Ruth Aylett
Jenni Calder
Fiona Graham
Sofka Zinoviev
Cynthia Rogerson
Julia Copus
Julian Evans
Elizabeth Reeder
Alison Phipps
Anthony Vahni Capildeo
Douglas Field
Monique Roffey
Horatio Clare
Ulrike Meike
Mohamed Ben-Madani
Kapka Kassabova
Ian McGuire
Dan Richards
Paul Henry
Jon Gower
Femi Oyebode
Charles Foster
Sam Leith
Jini Reddy
Kathryn Tann
Cynan Jones
Louise Kenward
Eric Ngalle Charles
George Monbiot
Gwyneth Lewis MBE
Jasmine Donahaye
Frank Cottrell Boyce
Richard Gwyn
Laura Barton
Jonathan Coe
Olivia McCannon
Mendez Mendez
Lucy Jones
Matthew Norman
James Buxton
James Hanning
Nicola Kelly
Nicholas Blincoe
Patrick Barkham
David Hartley
Ali Millar
Jackie Morris
Catherine Wilkinson
Julia Bell
Annie Worsley
Adam Farrer
Lydia Macpherson
Sean Lusk
Kate Ashton
Malachy Tallack
Jennie Feldman
Ed Vere
Chrissie Gittins
Michael Amherst
Vivienne Tregenza
Sue Purkiss
Sam Baker
John Grimwood
Anna Wharton
John Pare
Marcia Hutchinson
Tessa McWatt
Lucy Jones
Lily Dunn
Robin Mukherjee
Marina Warner
Imran Khan
Rupert Thomson
Carly Gledhill
Silvia Saunders
Astrid Alben
Philip Hancock
Mez Packer
Ben Hinshaw
Caroline Willcocks
Celia Silvani
Caro Giles
Rebecca Schiller
Rosie Dastgir
Amanda Lees
Jenny Knight
Paul March-Russell
Hannah Stowe
Jane Simmons
Caroline Sanderson
Maggie Fergusson
Roxani Krystalli
Marianne Brown
Louisa Adjoa Parker
Karen Powell
Clare Best
Marni Appleton
Cari Thomas
Christiana Spens
Megan Barker
Russell Celyn Jones
Stephanie Bretherton
J P Maxwell
Danuta Reah
Rachel Howard
Cailean Steed
Susan Cahill
Helen Mort
Rose Rouse
Bec Evans
Rodge Glass
Hannah Lowe
Hannah Copley
Irvine Welsh
Sinéad O’Hart
Sinéad Gleeson
Stephanie Merritt
Judith Thurley
Damian Fowler
Dan Tyte
Tom Gaisford
Chris Kent
Anthony Sattin
Pippa Little
Jane Sunderland
Claire Gleeson
Donald Murray
Garth Cartwright
Geraldine Mitchell
Sean Borodale
Lynn Davidson
Mark Burns
Lesley McDowell
Sheena Joughin
Marius Kociejowski
Rob Miles
Réaltán Ní Leannáin
Gemma Bowes
Seán Ò Muireagáin
Lynnda Wardle
Rachael Boast
Joanna Eede
Sarah Ward
Fiammetta Rocco
Erika Meza
Jo Weaver
Liam Carson
Amanda Douge
Mise Áine
Matthew Teller
Mícheál Ó Flaithearta
Gavin Plumley
Emma Jane Unsworth
Kirstin Innes
Jason Cockroft
Samuel Tongue
Elizabeth Rimmer
Amanda Smyth
Mairéad Ní Chonaola
Milagros Corcuera
Katherine Hill
Pascale Petit
Jane Clarke
Matthew Caley
Jessica Traynor
Alyson Sarah Hallett
Karen J MacDonnell
Pico Iyer
Lynn Mitchell
Doug Johnstone
Lynn Davidson
Maura Dooley
Yara Rodrigues Fowler
Wren Burke
Julie Brominicks
Clare Potter
Mary Cardaras
Jenni Desmond
Maggie Harris
Abi Elphinstone
Yvonne Boyle
Robin Dobson
Nicola Chester
Ruth Nic Giolla Iasachta
Chitra Ramaswamy
Lias Saoudi
Harry Sword
Sandra Dieckmann
Gloria Ward
Doreen Cunningham
Ada Grey
Karin Celestine
Hana Ormara
Holly Exley
Lena Jacobs
Helen Hancocks
Janet Sutherland
Catherine Cole
Ann O’Nammus
Carol McKay
Kathleen Kenny
Jessamine O’Connor
Patrick Jones
Ruby Wright
Oliver Lomax
Dai George
C.W.Laurie
Anita Pati
Kathryn Bromwich
Daniel Hahn
Peadar O’Donoghue
Anona Dawson
Leon McCarron
Alsy Conran
Jo Clement
Debbie Oates
Rebekah Harrison
Russell T Davies
Shona MacLean
Jenn Ashworth
Lucy Unwin
Sarah Dyer
Alison Lock
Michael Stewart
Rowe Irvin
Julie Hesmondhalgh
Ian Kershaw
Jon Woolcott
Cezary Bednarski
Claire Collison
Sònia Albert
Olivia Sudjic
Hanna Flint
Helen Kellock
Marta Altés
Fiona Cameron
Laura Sacron
Tristan Hughes
Daisy Hildyard
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett
Zoe Skoulding
Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Claire Collison
Ben Okri
David Nicholls
John Mitchinson
Damian Barr
Blindboy Boatclub
Sathnam Sanghera
Catherine Taylor
Bruno Santin
John Douglas Millar
Marion Urch McNulty
Charles Glass
Nell Stevens
Emma van Straaten
Francine Toon
Imogen Hermes Gowar
Anthony McGowan
Luciana Francis
JLM Morton
Amy-Jane Beer
Geoff Dyer
Eley Williams
Francesca Reece
Martha Sprackland
Claire Kohda
Shafik Meghji
Rebecca Watson
Anna Wilson
Joanne Limburg
Patrick Jones
Luciana Francis
Catherine Airey
Hannah Beer
Marie Crook
Kerry Downes
Maxwell Milligan
Raymond Khoury
Elodie Harper
Ben Masters
Tina Gharavi
