Nobel-winning Hiroshima survivor’s comparison to Gaza angers Israel

Israel has attacked a prominent survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bomb over a comparison he made between the blast and the current attack on Gaza.

Toshiyuki Mimaki, leader of the Nihon Hidankyo organization that represents survivors of the US attack, compared the two after it was announced on Friday that the group had received the Nobel Peace Prize.

“I thought for sure it would be the people working so hard in Gaza, as we’ve seen,” he told reporters in Tokyo after the announcement.

“In Gaza, their parents have children who are bleeding. It’s like in Japan 80 years ago.”

In response, Israel’s ambassador to Japan attacked the comparison as “outrageous and baseless” and said such comparisons “distort history and dishonor the victims.”

In August, the US and British ambassadors to Japan announced they would skip a ceremony commemorating the victims of the 1945 US atomic bombing because the city’s mayor did not invite the Israeli ambassador.

During Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza, several Israeli ministers and officials have advocated the use of a nuclear bomb on Gaza, turning the enclave into a “slaughterhouse” and “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the land”.

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South Africa has argued that the statements are evidence of genocidal intent in its ongoing case before the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, a charge Israel denies.

At least 140,000 people were killed by the US bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, while another 74,000 were killed in Nagasaki three days later.

Nihon Hidankyo was founded by survivors to commemorate the explosion and campaign for nuclear disarmament.

Israeli forces have killed at least 62 Palestinians and wounded 220 in the past 24 hours, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

This brings the death toll since October 7, 2023 to 42,289, with more than 98,684 injured and at least 10,000 still missing, likely dead and buried under rubble.

Health authorities report that more than 60 percent of the victims are children and women.