In a recent turn of events, former United Nations human rights official, Craig Mokhiber, has stepped down from his position, citing the UN's response to the conflict in Gaza as the primary reason for his departure. Mokhiber's resignation letter, dated October 28, urges the UN to hold Israel to the same standards applied when assessing human rights violations in other nations worldwide.

During his tenure as the director of the New York office of the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mokhiber labeled Israel's military operations in Gaza as a "textbook genocide." He accused the UN of repeated "failures" to act, drawing parallels to previous genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Myanmar.

An accomplished international human rights lawyer, Mokhiber had served within the UN system since 1992. Before taking on his New York role, he worked as a human rights adviser in Afghanistan and the occupied Palestinian territories.

The conflict in Gaza, which flared up on October 7 when the armed group Hamas initiated a surprise assault on Israel, has resulted in a staggering death toll. At least 8,805 Palestinians have lost their lives in Israeli attacks, while Hamas' actions have claimed the lives of at least 1,400 individuals and led to the capture of over 200 people.

In his resignation letter addressed to UN human rights chief Volker Turk, Mokhiber condemned what he described as "the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people." He asserted that this violence stemmed from an "ethno-nationalist colonial-settler ideology," continuing a long history of systematic persecution and purging based solely on the Palestinians' Arab identity.

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