Israel’s ambassador to Japan on Sunday criticised the leader of Nihon Hidankyo, a group of atomic bomb survivors awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, for comparing their experience to that of children from Gaza.
Gilad Cohen congratulated the organisation, which brings together survivors of the 1945 nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on receiving this year’s award, but criticised the group’s co-chairman Toshiyuki Mimaki on social media X for comparing the experiences of Japan and Gaza.
“Сo-chair Toshiyuki Mimaki’s comparison of Gaza to Japan after WWII is outrageous and baseless. Gaza is ruled by Hamas, a murderous terrorist organization committing a double war crime: targeting Israeli civilians, including women and children, while using its own people as human shields,” he said.
“I found no statement from the organization’s chairman on the October 7th massacre, where 1,200 people, including women and children, were murdered by Hamas, and 251 were kidnapped into Gaza. Such comparisons distort history and dishonor the victims,” according to him.
After announcing the award on Friday, Mimaki said the poor plight of children in Gaza is similar to what Japan faced at the end of World War II. Back then, some 140,000 people died when the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, and another 74,000 died in Nagasaki three days later.
In response, Nagasaki decided not to invite Cohen to this year’s 79th anniversary of the bombing, citing security concerns to avoid possible protests. The decision prompted the ambassadors of the United States, Britain and the European Union, among others, to skip the ceremony and send lower-level officials instead.
Health ministry in Gaza reported that 42,175 people have lost their lives there since the launch of Israel’s military campaign, most of them civilians. Israel cites official figures that the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 resulted in 1,206 deaths, mostly civilians.
