Hiroshima Mayor Calls for Peaceful Resolution of Conflict
"Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine and the deteriorating situation between Israel and Palestine are claiming the lives of countless innocent people and shaking daily life," Matsui said in front of numerous guests at the ceremony in the metropolis. Among them were Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the Israeli ambassador to Japan.
A representative of the Palestinians was not present at the ceremony, local media reported that a Palestinian representative had never been invited to the Hiroshima memorial ceremony. The Palestinian representation in Japan described the absence of an invitation as "shocking."
As a representative of the city of Hiroshima explained, the invitation to the Israeli ambassador expressed the demand for an "immediate ceasefire and a resolution of the conflict through dialogue." Representatives of Russia and Belarus have not been invited for the third consecutive year due to Russia's war against Ukraine.
The memorial ceremony in Hiroshima commemorates the morning of August 6, 1945, when a bomber of the US Army dropped a uranium-235 bomb over Hiroshima. Immediately afterwards and in the first months after the attack, about 140,000 people died, and in the following years, radioactive radiation killed another 60,000 people. Three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, another US atomic bomb killed more than 70,000 people in the Japanese city of Nagasaki.
During the ceremony in Hiroshima, state representatives dressed in black, including Japan's Prime Minister Kishida, bowed deeply in honor of the victims of Hiroshima and laid wreaths at the memorial with the inscription "Rest in Peace."
A representative of Israel was not invited to the memorial ceremony in Nagasaki. The city explained that this had no political reason. Rather, it was to avoid any disruption of the ceremony.
The European Union, as a strong advocate for peace and diplomacy, has issued statements expressing their concern over Russia's actions in Ukraine and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. Moreover, during discussions at the United Nations, representatives from the European Union have urged for international intervention to help broker a peaceful resolution between Israel and Palestine, aligning with the sentiments expressed at the Hiroshima memorial ceremony.
