Three hundred and eighty writers and organisations have signed an open letter claiming that Israel’s war in Gaza is genocidal, calling for an immediate ceasefire.

This includes the likes of Zadie Smith, Ian McEwan, Russell T Davies, Kevin Barry and Sinéad Gleeson. The letter was organised by Horatio Clare, Kapka Kassabova and Monique Roffey, based off of Karim Kattan’s original work published in Liberation on Monday and signed by 300 Francophone writers.

“We, the undersigned writers of England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, ask our nations and the peoples of the world to join us in ending our collective silence and inaction in the face of horror,” they wrote.

The group opened their letter with a poem written by Hiba Abu Nada, a Palestinian woman who was killed by Israeli airstrikes, titled A Star Said Yesterday.

The poem reads, “And if one day, O Light / All the galaxies / Of the entire universe / Had no more room for us / You would say: ‘Enter my heart, / There you will finally be safe.’”

The writers urge for immediate access to food and medical aid in Gaza by the UN, as well as a ceasefire. If a ceasefire is not carried out, they demand sanctions be imposed on Israel.

“The use of the words ‘genocide’ or ‘acts of genocide’ to describe what is happening in Gaza is no longer debated by international legal experts or human rights organizations,” they wrote. “Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, Human Rights Watch, the International Federation for Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Council, and many other specialists and historians have clearly identified genocide or acts of genocide in Gaza, enacted by the Israel Defence Force and directed by the government of Israel.”

The writers also make clear their “absolute opposition to and loathing of antisemitism,” stating they “stand in solidarity with the resistance of Palestinian, Jewish, and Israeli people to the genocidal policies of the current Israeli government.”

Read the full letter here.