Israel’s brutal occupation of the Palestinian people has created refugees, death squads, and now starvation in Gaza, and hunger throughout the occupied territories.
Thousands of youth and trade unionists will be marching to demand the ending of the Zionist occupation of Palestine today, assembling at Charing Cross embankment at midday.
The Israeli government, backed by the US and the UK, has imposed a starvation regime on Gaza, and is punishing the Palestinian people for electing a Hamas government.
Dov Weisglass, the Israeli prime minister’s adviser, joked about the siege: ‘It’s like an appointment with a dietician. The Palestinians will get a lot thinner, but won’t die.’
• According to a January 2006 UN report, 64 per cent of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories are living below the poverty line.
• In Gaza, 40 per cent of children suffer from malnutrition because of the Israeli occupation. John Ging, director of UN operations there, said: ‘This is the first time bread has been rationed. There’s no sugar, oil, milk, the basics.’
• A UN report in September 2005 said that 60 Palestinian women had given birth at Israeli checkpoints since 2000 and 36 of their babies died as a result.
• Since September 2000, over 3,800 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army and settlers, and over 29,000 injured.
• Israel is building an Apartheid Wall that, when completed, will annex East Jerusalem and almost half of the West Bank, leaving the Palestinians imprisoned in a series of ghettos.
• Over half of the Palestinian population were expelled from their homes in the 1947-49 war, and a second wave of refugees was created in 1967. Today, two-thirds of Palestinians are refugees.
Today’s demonstration organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Association of Palestinian Community, Palestinian Return Centre, British Muslim Initiative, Friends of Al-Aqsa and the Palestinian Forum in Britain is demanding that the US, UK and Israel must
• recognise the democratically elected government of Palestine
• abide by international law
• acknowledge that there will be a viable Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital
• end the illegal occupation
• remove all the settlers
• dismantle the Apartheid Wall.