Resolution condemning “genocide” in Gaza submitted to Polish parliament

Oct 7, 2025 | Politics

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

The far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) party has submitted a resolution to Poland’s parliament condemning Israel’s “genocidal actions” in Gaza, as well as the “criminal terrorist attacks by Hamas”. It has called on other parties to adopt the resolution in a vote.

“We must speak plainly: Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal, and Israel is committing genocide in Gaza!” wrote Sławomir Mentzen, one of the opposition party’s leaders, on social media.

The text of the proposed resolution first “condemns the criminal terrorist attacks by Hamas against the civilian population of Israel” and then “condemns the criminal and genocidal actions against civilians carried out by the Israeli armed forces in Gaza”.

It also condemns Israel’s detention last week of Polish citizens who were part of a flotilla seeking to bring aid to Gaza, calling it “a violation of international law”. The Polish activists were deported by Israel on Monday and are due to return to Poland on Wednesday.

The proposed resolution also calls on the Polish foreign ministry to investigate the death last year in Gaza of a Polish aid worker, Damian Soból, who was part of a humanitarian convoy hit by Israeli air strikes.

Presenting the resolution to parliament, one of Confederation’s MPs, Grzegorz Płaczek, said that, while “there are many things in this chamber that divide us, there are areas that should unite us, and one such area is when someone is suffering”.

He said that 65,000 people have died in Gaza and noted that a UN commission of inquiry last month announced that it has found that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians.

Israel has categorically rejected the UN commission’s findings as “distorted and false”. It insists it has taken measures to avoid civilian casualties and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid while carrying out legitimate military operations in Gaza.

 

It remains unclear how other parties in Poland’s parliament will vote on Confederation’s resolution. In August, The Left (Lewica), which is part of the ruling coalition, submitted a proposed resolution of its own “condemning crimes against the civilian population in Gaza”.

Its text includes the word “genocide”, though without the same direct condemnation and attribution as in Confederation’s. “Intentionally causing famine as a method of war constitutes a war crime, a crime against humanity (the crime of extermination), and the crime of genocide,” it reads.

Last week, The Left more directly made clear its own view that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people”.

The Left’s resolution on Gaza has remained stuck in the parliamentary foreign affairs committee amid disagreements between the group and its partners in the ruling coalition, reported news website Onet on Monday this week.

One anonymous MP from the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), the main element of the ruling coaliton, told Onet that, although “in principle what The Left writes in the resolution is true…we, as Poland, have a complex relationship with Israel and any move concerning that country should be carefully considered”.

Last week, the Polish foreign minister, Radosław Sikorski of KO, told Polskie Radio that he believes “what is happening there [in Gaza] is a terrible tragedy, but it does not meet my understanding of the word genocide”.

In August, Sikorski accused Israel of using “excessive force” and called on it to “respect international humanitarian law” in its “occupation” of Gaza and the West Bank, saying that “no one has the right to cause children to starve”.

Soon after, Prime Minister Donald Tusk declared that, while “Poland was, is and will be on Israel’s side in its confrontation with Islamic terrorism”, it would “never [be] on the side of politicians whose actions lead to hunger and the death of mothers and children”.

In January this year, however, the Polish government announced that it would not enforce an International Criminal Court arrest warrant against Netanyahu if he visited Poland for the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

In 2023, one of Confederation’s then leaders, Grzegorz Braun, attacked a Hanukkah ceremony in Poland’s parliament, calling Judaism a “satanic, racist…cult”. While his actions were condemned by all other parties, he remained in Confederation until this year, when he was expelled for launching a rival presidential bid to Mentzen.


Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Jaber Jehad Badwan/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 4.0)

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