Showing posts with label #Gaza # Palestine # Israel # Collective Punishment # Solidarity # Emergency Appeal # News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #Gaza # Palestine # Israel # Collective Punishment # Solidarity # Emergency Appeal # News. Show all posts

Thursday 14 November 2019

As fragile calm is reached in Gaza, Solidarity with the Palestinian People


Am writing this after hearing  heartbreaking accounts from friends in Gaza following latest round of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.Reminding  me yet again, that nowhere is safe for the Palestinians.
Currently a fragile cease-fire is holding out  after two days of aerial bombardment on the citizens of Gaza.in the heaviest escalation of violence for months  .
It is important to emphasize that Israel's recurring attacks on the Gaza Strip are part of its daily violence against Palestinians everywhere.This systematic  violence includes the theft of Palestinian land and resources, mass incarcernation ,and the apartheid system that tears through all their lives. Over eleven years of blockade and conflict has seriously damaged Gaza’s infrastructure.Gaza’s chronic energy crisis has left essential services in Gaza barely able to function, and approximately two million inhabitants with power cuts of up to 20 hours per day, and limited access to electricity, clean water and medicine that.has pushed this this tiny territory to the brink of collapse,Conditions have become so extreme that the United Nations has stated that by 2020 the Gaza Strip could become uninhabitable.
As of Wednesday afternoon, 34 people in Gaza, including civilians and children have been killed by Israeli strikes. At least 69 have been injured according to the Gaza based health ministry. All of them are said to be civilians, innocent people not militants with nothing to do with politics. Palestinian civilians across the occupied Palestinian territory are subject to threats to their lives and physical safety from conflict related violence, and from policies and practices related to the Israeli occupation, including settler violence on a daily basis.  These  recent deaths and injuries are in addition to those resulting from  the Great March of Return demonstrations at the Gaza Strip. These weekly demonstrations have led to many deaths and thousands of injuries.
Israel’s renewal of bombing follows the extrajudicial assassination of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) Commander Baha Abu Al Ata at his home in Gaza, in which his wife was also killed, and the targeting of a home belonging to another PIJ official in Damascus. This clearly premeditated killing is in violation of international law. In carrying out the killing the IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi made Israel’s attentions clear in a televised address, stating “we are preparing for escalation from the ground, air and sea.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to justify the extra judicial killing and the bombing campaign as acts of self defence. 
These attacks also come in a week where Israeli soldiers have been filmed shooting dead a 22 year old Palestinian from Hebron, a killing condemned by Nickolay Mladenov, UN Special coordinator for The Middle East Peace Process, who called for an investigation given that the victim, Omar A Badawi, was clearly posing no threat when he was shot. An occupying force is using advanced weaponry against two million besieged people in Gaza in what amounts to collective punishment. 
The violence has drawn international calls for calm.Ben Jamal, Director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: “The failure of the international community, including the UK government, to hold Israel to account results in Israel believing it can carry out extra judicial killings and bombing assaults with impunity. Whilst the UK continues to arm Israel despite its violations of human rights and contraventions of international law, we are made complicit in these acts. We call upon all UK citizens committed to respect for human rights and the rule of law to join us in our campaigns to pressure the UK government and companies to end this complicity.”https://www.palestinecampaign.org/press-release-palestine-solidarity-campaign-responds-to-bombing-in-gaza/
Palestine Solidarity Campaign is calling on the UK Government to: 
Condemn Israel’s latest escalation, including its policy of targeted assassinations, and to demand that Israel ends its bombing campaign.Call on Israel to end the siege of Gaza which amounts to collective punishment, illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention.Fulfill its duties under international law to hold Israel to account for its ongoing illegal occupation that it is only able to sustain through such acts of illegitimate violence, In this regard PSC reiterates its call for an end to the UK's sale of weapons to Israel that are used to violate Palestinian human rights and for the UK to ban the import of goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements.
As yet another brutal assault on the Gaza strip happens, we must continue, to show our solidarity and keep demanding justice for the Palestinian people against their systems of oppression and support their struggle for liberation. My thoughts go out the people of Gaza, the need for solidarity with its their struggle against Israeli militarism, apartheid and occupation, has never been greater. As a result of the latests attacks on gaza, the already overburderned and fragile health system faces an even deper crisis. Even before Tuesday, almost 50 %  of  medicines were already running at zero stock with less than one months supply on the shelf, now hospitals are at a risk of running out completely. Please consider contributing to the following emergency appea.l. 

https://www.map.org.uk/donate/donation-details/167?utm_source=MAP+Newsletter&utm_campaign=b0d5d9ab70-20191004_Sept-E-Appeal-Malnutrition-AD-1_COPY_01&utm_medium=email