News - World: UN human rights experts call on FIFA and UEFA to stop “legitimizing” and “normalizing” the Israeli regime’s crimes against Palestinians, including its ongoing war of genocide on the Gaza Strip, by letting the Israeli team continue to participate in various international events.

“Sports must reject the perception that it is business as usual,” the experts warned, according to a Tuesday report by the UN Human Rights Office.

The associations, they said, had to do what was in their power to stop treating “the situation arising from Israel’s unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” as normal.

They made special reference to the October 2023-present genocide that has so far claimed the lives of around 65,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children, besides wreaking devastation throughout the coastal sliver’s entire expanse.

“There is a legal and moral imperative to take every measure possible to end the genocide in Gaza now.”

A boycott against the Israeli team’s participation in international football would fall within the category of such punitive measures, they stated.

The experts noted how the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory had recently established taking place of actual genocide in Gaza.

They also reminded that last year, the International Court of Justice mandated through an interim order that every country commit to “its legal obligations to act against genocide.”

The remarks followed a growing trend of boycott and divestment targeting the Israeli regime over the genocide.

Recently, the trend saw various renowned former footballers, football support groups, and international celebrities seek to prompt countries to boycott the Israeli football team.

#GameOverIsrael, launched on September 16, strives to make some of the countries priding themselves on trailblazing football history, including England, France, Italy, and Spain, to suspend the team.

The countries are also expected to ban Israeli club sides from continental competition and prevent Israeli players from joining domestic leagues.

Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Norway, and Scotland are the rest of the nations that the campaign seeks to bring pressure to bear on towards realizing the purpose.

Source: Press TV