Man sobs after winning Nobel Peace Prize and says it should have gone to Gaza activists

The winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize broke down in tears upon accepting the award, telling the crowd that pro-Palestine activists deserved to win instead.

This year’s prize was won by Nihon Hidankyo, a group of Hiroshima survivors campaigning to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

Hidankyo Mimako, the group’s co-chair gave an emotional acceptance speech at a news conference today, saying he never dreamed they would win and thought ‘those fighting hard for peace in Gaza deserve it’.

Mr Hidankyo added: ‘The images of children In Gaza covered in blood, held by their parents remind me of Japan 80 years ago,’ referring to the US atomic bomb that fell on Hiroshima in 1945.

He said that most people today wanted peace in the world, ‘but politicians insist on waging war, saying, “We won’t stop until we win.”

‘I think this true for Russia and Israel, and I always wonder whether the power of the United Nations couldn’t put a stop to it.’

What is happening in Gaza this week?

Israel launched a deadly ground offensive in northern Gaza nine days ago that has killed at least 300 people, according to Palestinian health officials.

Among them were around 20 people sheltering at Jabalia camp, which has come under attack.

Charity Medicine Sans Frontier (MSF) said thousands of people are trapped in the camp, including five of its staff, who are ‘fearing for their lives’.

Posting on X, they quoted one of them, MSF project coordinator Sarah Vuylsteke, who said: ‘Nobody is allowed to get in or out, anyone who tries is getting shot.’

A driver for the organisation, Hayder, who is also trapped, added: ‘We were staying at the Al-Yemen Al-Saeed Hospital, but they bombed it.

‘About 20 people were killed. I don’t know what to do, at any moment we could die.

‘People are starving. I am afraid to stay, and I am also afraid to leave.’

The charity – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said Israeli forces issued evacuation orders on Monday while carrying out attacks at the same time, preventing people from leaving the area safely.

It added: ‘Forced evacuations of homes and bombing of neighborhoods by the Israeli forces is turning north Gaza into uninhabitable ruins.’

Meanwhile, an Israeli strike on the central Gaza Strip killed a family of eight on Saturday night, Palestinian medical officials said.

The strike hit a home in the Nuseirat refugee camp, killing two parents and their six children, who ranged in age from eight to 23, according to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, where the bodies were taken.

It said a further seven people were wounded, including two women and a child in a critical condition. An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies.’

Ireland’s Tanaiste, Micheal Martin, today described the scenes unfolding in Jabalia as ‘horrific’ and said they must stop.

‘An offensive by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), backed by tanks and air strikes, has left dozens of civilians dead, many close to starvation, and access to humanitarian aid extremely curtailed,’ the Deputy Prime Minister said in a statement.

Mr Martin added that Israel was encircling ‘an entire population’ in Gaza, forcing a’mass expulsion of people from their homeland’, which he said was a ‘war crime’.

He called for an end to the conflict and said he would be raising his government’s ‘profound concern’ at the Foreign Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg on Monday.

Israel insists it is only interested in Hamas targets and says it tries to avoid harming civilians.

The military blames their deaths on Hamas and other armed groups, claiming they operate in densely populated areas.

In recent months, it has repeatedly struck schools being used as shelters by displaced people, accusing militants of hiding among them.

Israel also continues to wage air and ground campaigns in Lebanon, which it says are targeted at Hezbollah.

An Ottoman-era market in the southern city of Nabatiyeh was bombed overnight, killing at least one person and wounding four more.

At least 2,255 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of the conflict, including more than 1,400 people since September, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many were Hezbollah fighters.

Around 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza during the same period, say Gazan health officials.

According to Save the Children, at least 11,300 of these were children, of which 30% (1,300) were under five.

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