Gaza family ask Queen Elizabeth to remove "blood diamond"“On 4 January 2009, at the start of the ground phase of operation Cast Lead, about 100 members of the extended a-Samuni family were huddled inside one house in the a-Zeitun neighborhood of Gaza City. The next morning, an Israeli airstrike killed 21 people inside the house, including 9 children and 10 women, and injured dozens of other family members. During the next two days, the army refused access to medical teams, in spite of being informed of the terrible outcome by family members who managed to escape the bombed home and human rights and humanitarian organizations, including B'Tselem. When medics managed to get to site, they found four small children next to their dead mothers in one of the houses, and evacuated several wounded people. The army refused permission to evacuate the bodies and they remained in the rubble for a further two weeks.”

11th June 2012 Gaza family, victims of Israeli war crimes, appeal to Queen Elizabeth II to remove blood diamond The Sammoni family in Gaza have issued an appeal to the Queen to remove the Steinmetz Forevermark Jubilee Diamond which De Beers put on display in the Tower of London to mark the Queens Jubilee. Twenty nine members of the Sammoni family were killed by the Givati Brigade of the Israeli army during the Israeli assault on Gaza called Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 January 2009. 

A UH Human Rights Council investigation concluded that Israeli forces committed serious war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

The following is a translated transcript of the appeal by Helmi Sammoni:

“On behalf of the surviving members of the Sammoni family and the hundreds of other families in Gaza who have been killed by war crimes committed by the Givati Brigade of the Israeli Army, we are shocked and disappointed by the decision of De Beers to present the Queen of England with a diamond manufactured by the Steinmetz Diamond company – a company which supported the Givati Brigade during the Israeli war on Gaza late 2008 as they murdered 29 members of our family in cold blood. We the Sammoni family call on the Queen of England and the British people to decline this gift. We demand that De Beers be instructed to remove this offensive blood diamond display immediately.”

Diamonds that generate revenue used to fund a regime guilty of war crimes are de-facto blood diamonds.

We call on De-Beers to show respect for the surviving victims of the diamond-funded Givati Brigade’s actions in Gaza and remove the Forevermark Steinmetz Jubilee diamond from the Tower of London.