Japan Marks 79th Nagasaki Anniversary; Several World Leaders Absent Over Israel Exclusion

Nagasaki, Japan on Friday commemorated the US atomic bombing of the city in 1945, while refusing to invite Israel to the ceremonies amid its continuing war on Gaza.

At 11.02 a.m. local time (0202GMT), the exact moment a US B-29 airplane released its bomb over Nagasaki, the city fell silent in remembrance.

The tragic event at the end of World War II is especially significant as Nagasaki remains the last place in history to have suffered an atomic bomb attack.

"The government of Japan, the only state attacked by atomic bombs in war, must express a serious attitude of pursuing a world without nuclear weapons," Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki told a ceremony marking the anniversary.

"As a step toward this, we call for the Japanese government to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as soon as possible," he said, as quoted by Japan’s Mainichi daily.

He also called for the Japanese government "to firmly uphold the principle of peace embodied in the Constitution of Japan and to demonstrate its leadership in international efforts to ease the heightened tension in Northeast Asia and advance disarmament in the region, such as the Northeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone initiative."

The decision was “not politically motivated,” he added.

The central government of Japan, one of the members of G7, refused to comment on Nagasaki’s decision not to invite Israeli officials.

US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel and British Ambassador to Japan Julia Longbottom are both skipping the ceremony this year in response to Nagasaki not inviting Israel.

The no-show by the two countries drew protests outside their diplomatic missions in Tokyo on Thursday.

The US ambassador to Japan skipped a ceremony on Friday marking the 79th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in protest at Israel not being invited. Rahm Emanuel instead attended a prayer meeting at a Tokyo temple with Israeli ambassador Gilad Cohen and Britain's Julia Longbottom, who also boycotted the Nagasaki event.

On August 9, 1945, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people including many who survived the explosion but died later from radiation exposure. The bomb fell three days after the first nuclear bomb hit Hiroshima and killed 140,000 people. Japan announced its surrender in World War II on August 15, 1945.

Former US ambassador John Roos in 2010 became the first American representative to attend the Hiroshima commemoration and followed suit in Nagasaki two years later.

Nagasaki's mayor, Shiro Suzuki, has insisted that Cohen's exclusion from the annual event in the southern Japanese city was "not political". Instead, it was to avoid possible protests over the Gaza conflict and ensure a "smooth ceremony in a peaceful and solemn environment."

But Emanuel, former chief of staff for ex-president Barack Obama, on Friday rejected this.

"I think it was a political decision, not one based on security, given the prime minister (of Japan) is in attendance," he told reporters after the ceremony at the Buddhist temple.

The snub drew "a moral equivalence between Russia and Israel -- one country that invaded versus one country that was a victim of invasion," he added. Russia and ally Belarus have not been invited to either Nagasaki or Hiroshima since Moscow's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

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