Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Japanese atomic bomb survivors
Nihon Hidankyo – a group of Japanese atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki – has won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee praised the group’s extraordinary efforts “to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons” and “to remind the world of the pressing need for nuclear disarmament”.
It said: “This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, also known as Hibakusha, is receiving the peace prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.
“These historical witnesses have helped to generate and consolidate widespread opposition to nuclear weapons around the world by drawing on personal stories, creating educational campaigns based on their own experience, and issuing urgent warnings against the spread and use of nuclear weapons.”
In awarding the prestigious accolade to the group, committee chairman Jorgen Watne Frydnes said it wished “to honour all survivors who, despite physical suffering and painful memories, have chosen to use their costly experience to cultivate hope and engagement for peace”.
Next year will mark 80 years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (pictured) in August 1945. Pic: AP
“Never did I dream this could happen,” Toshiyuki Mimaki, head of Nihon Hidankyo, told reporters at a news conference in Hiroshima on Friday with tears in his eyes.
He was three years old and playing in front of his family home on the morning of 6 August 1945 when he saw a flash in the sky.
Mr Mimaki said the group’s win would give a major boost to its efforts to demonstrate to the world “the abolition of nuclear weapons can be achieved”.
“Nuclear weapons should absolutely be abolished,” he said.
Toshiyuki Mimaki learns Nihon Hidankyo is the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize. Pic: The Yomiuri Shimbun via AP
Next year will mark 80 years since the atomic bombings by the United States of the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 during World War Two.
Without naming specific countries, Mr Frydnes warned today’s nuclear weapons have far greater destructive power, and could kill millions of people.
“A nuclear war could destroy our civilisation,” he said.
It is not the first time efforts to eradicate nuclear weapons have been honoured by the committee.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won the prize in 2017 – and in 1995, Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs were awarded the prestigious accolade for “their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms.”
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Nagasaki’s peace park. File pic: Lucas Vallecillos/VWPics/AP
Last year, the award went to Narges Mohammadi, an imprisoned Iranian women’s rights activist.
Other previous winners of the award include South Africa’s anti-apartheid champion Nelson Mandela, former US president Barack Obama for his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy, and Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai for her fight for the right of girls to receive an education.
The Nobel Prize was created by wealthy Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who in his will dictated his estate should be used to fund “prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind”.
The peace prize is the fifth Nobel awarded this week, after literature, chemistry, physics and medicine.
Earlier this week, British computer scientist Sir Demis Hassabis was one of three winners of the Nobel Prize for chemistry for breakthroughs in predicting the structure of proteins and creating entirely new ones.
Sir Demis, who is the chief executive and co-founder of London-based artificial intelligence start-up Google DeepMind, received the honour alongside John Jumper, a senior research scientist at the company, and David Baker, of the University of Washington.
Israel has approved a plan to capture all of the Gaza Strip and remain there for an unspecified length of time, Israeli officials say.
According to Reuters, the plan includes distributing aid, though supplies will not be let in yet.
The Israeli official told the agency that the newly approved offensive plan would move Gaza’s civilian population southward and keep humanitarian aid from falling into Hamas’s hands.
On Sunday, the United Nations rejected what it said was a new plan for aid to be distributed in what it described as Israeli hubs.
Israeli cabinet ministers approved plans for the new offensive on Monday morning, hours after it was announced that tens of thousands of reserve soldiers are being called up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to achieve his goal of destroying Hamas or returning all the hostages, despite more than a year of brutal war in Gaza.
Palestinian children struggle to get donated food at a community kitchen in Khan Younis, Gaza. Pic: AP
Officials say the plan will help with these war aims but it would also push hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to southern Gaza, exacerbating an already dire humanitarian crisis.
They said the plan included the “capturing of the strip and the holding of territories”.
It would also try to prevent Hamas from distributing humanitarian aid, which Israel says strengthens the group’s rule in Gaza.
The UN rejected the plan, saying it would leave large parts of the population, including the most vulnerable, without supplies.
It said it “appears designed to reinforce control over life-sustaining items as a pressure tactic – as part of a military strategy”.
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More than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed since the IDF launched its ground offensive in the densely-populated territory, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
It followed the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel, which killed 1,200 people and saw around 250 people taken hostage.
A fragile ceasefire that saw a pause in the fighting and the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners collapsed earlier this year.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate against the Houthis and their Iranian “masters” after the group launched a missile attack on the country’s main international airport.
A missile fired by the group from Yemen landed near Ben Gurion Airport, causing panic among passengers in the terminal building.
“Attacks by the Houthis emanate from Iran,” Mr Netanyahu wrote on X. “Israel will respond to the Houthi attack against our main airport AND, at a time and place of our choosing, to their Iranian terror masters.”
Israeli police officers investigate the missile crater. Pic: Reuters
The missile impact left a plume of smoke and briefly halted flights and commuter traffic at the airport. Some international carriers have cancelled flights to and from Tel Aviv for several days.
Four people were lightly wounded, paramedic service Magen David Adom said.
Air raid sirens went off across Israel and footage showed passengers yelling and rushing for cover.
The attack came hours before senior Israeli cabinet ministers were set to vote on whether to intensify the country’s military operations in the Gaza Strip, and as the army began calling up thousands of reserves in anticipation of a wider operation in the enclave.
Houthi military spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the group fired a hypersonic ballistic missile at the airport.
Iran’s defence minister later told a state TV broadcaster that if the country was attacked by the US or Israel, it would target their bases, interests and forces where necessary.
Israel’s military said several attempts to intercept the missile were unsuccessful.
Air, road and rail traffic were halted after the attack, police said, though it resumed around an hour later.
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Yemen’s Houthis have been firing missiles at Israel since its war with Hamas in Gaza began on 7 October 2023, and while most have been intercepted, some have penetrated the country’s missile defence systems and caused damage.
Israel has previously struck the group in Yemen in retaliation and the US and UK have also launched strikes after the Houthis began attacking international shipping, saying it was in solidarity with Palestinians over Israel’s war with Hamas.
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