Israeli writer David Grossman denounces 'genocide'

The renowned Israeli writer David Grossman has called the way his country is conducting war in the Gaza Strip "genocide," saying his heart is "broken," in an interview published Friday in the Italian daily La Repubblica.

"I refused for years to use that term: genocide. But now I can't help using it, after what I've read in the newspapers, after the images I've seen, and after talking with people who have been there," he said. "I want to speak as someone who did everything they could to avoid calling Israel a genocidal state," he stated.

"And now, with immense pain and a broken heart, I have to acknowledge that this is what's happening before my eyes. Genocide. It's an avalanche word: once you've said it, it only grows, like an avalanche. And it brings even more destruction and suffering," added Grossman, whose works have been translated into many languages, including French, English, and Italian.

Asked what he felt when reading the death toll numbers in Gaza, he replied: "I feel sick." "To put the words Israel and famine together, to do so starting from our history, from our supposed sensitivity to humanity's suffering, from the moral responsibility that we've always said we've had towards every human being and not only towards Jews (...) all that is devastating," Grossman continued.

Going against the current of the Israeli government, Grossman said he remains "desperately loyal" to the idea of two states, Palestine and Israel, "mainly because I see no alternative," welcoming in this context the willingness of French President Emmanuel Macron to recognize a Palestinian state in September.

"I think it's a good idea and I don't understand the hysteria with which it was received in Israel," he said. "It is clear that there will need to be precise conditions: no weapons. And the guarantee of transparent elections from which anyone who thinks of using violence against Israel will be excluded," the writer concluded.