Read the statement against the siege on Gaza; a siege which denies Palestinians in the tiny walled-in Strip any form of humanity. It calls upon all that are mobilizing in occasion of the Global Day of Action on January 26 called by the WSF to take immediate and concrete steps to isolate apartheid Israel.
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The Global Day of Action calls people around the world to mobilise to fight for a world free from war, colonialism and racism.
For us as Palestinians, this is a call of extreme urgency. On January 22, even as social movements and people of good faith around the world raise the call against racism and bloodshed, the Israeli Occupation redoubles its attack against us.
In Gaza, the Occupation is deploying the weapons that have become bitterly familiar to Palestinians over the past 60 years. Not satisfied merely with bombs, rockets and assassinations, the entire population of Gaza is being targeted for collective punishment. Their crime: being Palestinians. The Nakba that began in 1948 with massacres and violent expulsions continues in 2008 with forced transfer and the starvation of the population.
On Sunday evening, Gazaâs only power plant was shut down, cutting electricity to the whole population in the freezing winter. Bakeries have stopped production. Water wells, hospitals and sewage treatment facilities are unable to function. UN food trucks, upon which 80% of Gazaâs population depends, have been refused entry. 68% of the population will be unable to meet their basic needs. 35-40 types of medicines have run out, 50-60 will be gone within a month. The hospitals, which need 8000 of liters of fuel every day, will be crippled. 600-700 people who urgently need hospital treatment outside Gaza are trapped in the area. 64 people have already died due to lack of medicines. Life in Gaza is now no longer possible. This is collective punishment; it is a war crime.
A full scale invasion of Gaza is threatened â it will cost many lives. This is the peace that Annapolis brings: the peace of the graveyard. This is Bushâs promise to the Palestinian people: ghettos, siege and ongoing Nakba, while international governments stand in complicity.
As global social movements, we must stand together against this war that is not only against Palestinians, but against the very values of the popular struggles for freedom, justice and equality all over the world. We are calling all movements and organizations to join the call for boycott, divestment and sanctions and to put pressure on their governments and international institutions to isolate apartheid Israel.