Nobel laureate Hidankyo co-chair worries about children in Israel and Gaza

By Chang-Ran Kim

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toshiyuki Mimaki was beside himself with joy when he found out that the atomic bomb survivors' group that he co-chairs had won the Nobel Peace Prize, but later pushed back tears of sorrow as he pictured children bleeding from their wounds in Israel and Gaza.

The Japanese organisation Nihon Hidankyo, a grassroots movement of survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs at the end of World War Two, won the award on Friday in what was seen as a plea to nuclear-armed countries not to use those weapons.

While Mimaki said the prize would give a major boost to his group's efforts to demonstrate that it was possible to abolish nuclear weapons, he acknowledged that many countries seemed uninterested in seeing a world without them.

"You hear countries making threats like, 'We will use nuclear weapons any time'," he said in a live interview on public broadcaster NHK hours after the prize was announced.

"The United Nations has decided that there will be five countries with nuclear weapons, but more and more countries are acquiring them. The idea that the world is safe because there are nuclear weapons - we are absolutely opposed to this.

"It is impossible to maintain peace in the world in a world with nuclear weapons," he said.

Mimaki, who was three years old when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, faulted governments for waging wars even as their citizens yearned for peace.

"Especially in places like Israel and Gaza, children are being covered in blood and living every day without food, having their schools destroyed, stations destroyed and bridges destroyed," he said, appearing to fight back tears.

"The people are wishing for peace. 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."

President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned the West of potential nuclear consequences since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

This month, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country would speed up steps towards becoming a nuclear-armed military superpower, and would not rule out using them if it came under attack.

Nihon Hidankyo was formed in 1956, prompted in part by the United States' testing of a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean in 1954.

(Reporting by Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Kevin Liffey)