Please Share Widely!
July 19, 2018
For Immediate Release
Over 150 Palestinians have so far been killed and more than 16,000 (16, 496) wounded by Israeli occupation forces as close to a hundred and fifty thousand Palestinians in total marched near the fence separating Gaza from the rest of occupied Palestine (“Israel”) in a major demonstration which started on March 30 2018, marking the 42nd anniversary of Land Day, and has continued weekly since. These marches demand the lifting of the eleven-year siege of Gaza and the implementation of the Right of Palestinians to Return to their homes and lands of origin from which they had been dispossessed by the Zionist occupation since 1948. #GreatReturnMarch
The criminal Israeli forces fired live ammunition at the unarmed protesters and have used tear gas to push them back from the fence. Live gunfire on unarmed civilians constitutes a brutal violation of the international legal obligation to distinguish between civilians and combatants.
INTENSIFICATION
More recently, the situation has gone from bad to even worse. Israel has intensified its attacks with widespread aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip, north, south, east and west. The siege was also intensified and all the border crossings are now closed including the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing. The Sissi regime of Egypt is complicit. Nothing is moving in or out. The Gaza Strip, which is the most densely populated place on planet Earth has been under siege for more than eleven years already and is facing a humanitarian catastrophe. About 80% of the population of the Strip are refugees who were expelled from their homes and lands with the imposition of the Zionist colonial expansionist entity in Palestine under the supervision of the British mandate.
ACTION NEEDED
It is now more important than ever for all people of conscience, for civil societies in the US and internationally, for all human rights advocates, and for all Palestinians and their supporters to take to the streets once again to demand an end to the siege of #Gaza, to put an end to this brutal Israeli occupation and severe humanitarian crisis, and to demand the implementation of the fundamental, inalienable, legal, historical, individual and collective right of Palestinians to return to their homes and lands of origin, consistent with the goals of the Great Return March! #Palestine
Gaza Can’t Wait Any Longer!
Mobilize! Organize! Protest!
Long Live Gaza! Long Live Palestine!
Until Return!
