News, November 2007
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Break the Siege on Gaza Before it is Too Late
a Call from the University Teachers’ Association in Palestine
Hannah Kawas, November 8, 2007
We condemn in the strongest possible terms the Israeli war crimes committed against our people in the Gaza Strip. We call on the international community and the Arab and Islamic worlds, to take up their responsibility to protect the Palestinian people from this heinous aggression and immediately terminate the continuing Israeli policy of collective punishment. Nothing whatsoever justifies the Israeli savagery and its genocidal war against the 1.4 million civilians of Gaza.
Since June, Israel has adopted a continuous series of measures harming the civilian population. In September, Gaza was declared "an enemy entity," and imports were restricted to 9 basic materials. Prohibited have been such items as certain medicines, furniture, electrical appliances, cow and cigarettes, and decreased amounts of such basic foods as fruits, milk and dairy products. Several days ago, Ehud Barak, the minister of defense, announced that fuel and electricity supplies would be cut. Gaza depends 100% on Israel for its fuels and close to 60% for its electricity. Since the beginning of the year, 450 Palestinians have died there and in the West Bank.
The Palestinian people had already been under siege as collective punishment for exercising their democratic choice in elections in January 2006. Israel has turned the Gaza Strip into the largest concentration camp with the largest population of prisoners in the world and called it "withdrawal". The international conspiracy of silence towards the genocidal war taking place against the 1.4 million civilians in Gaza indicates complicity in these war crimes.
According to UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."
We, therefore, call upon the international community to demand that the rogue State of Israel end its siege and compensate for the destruction of life and infrastructure that it has visited upon the Palestinian people. We also call upon all Palestine solidarity groups and all international civil society organizations to demand:
- An end to the siege that has been imposed on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
- The protection of civilian lives and property, as stipulated in International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law such as The Fourth Geneva Convention (to which Israel itself is a signatory.)
- That Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip be provided with financial and material support to cope with the immense hardship that they are experiencing
-An end to occupation, Apartheid and other war crimes.
-Immediate reparations and compensation for all destruction carried out by
the Israeli Occupation Forces in the Gaza Strip.
The One Democratic State Group
The University Teachers’ Association in Palestine
The Arab Cultural Forum
Contact:
+ 972 599 880608
+ 972 599 441766
+ 972 599 322636
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