Category: Gaza - Page 2 - International Solidarity Movement

Family members of Gazan activist Ahmed Abu Artema killed in Israeli airstrike

ISM PRESS RELEASE

October 27

Our friend, the poet Ahmed Abu Artema, whose social media post inspired the Great March of Return in 2018, has been targeted in an Israeli airstrike that shelled his home in Tel al Sultan, Rafah, Gaza, killing five members of his family.

Ahmed was also seriously injured in the attack on October 24, suffering second degree burns. He is now in a stable condition. Ahmed’s 12-year-old son, Abdullah, two of his brothers and mother-in-law were killed. His other son and Ahmed’s sister are in a critical condition.

His home was one of many targeted despite being in the southern region of the Gaza Strip, where people from the north were ordered to go by the Israeli army for their ‘safety’. There is no safe place in Gaza.

Commenting on the targeting of Ahmed’s family, Neta Golan, a co-founder of ISM and Return Solidarity, said: “In the weeks leading up to the attack, Ahmed had used his voice to call for global protests to stop Israel’s genocide and criminal bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip.

“It was Ahmed’s words in 2018 that inspired thousands of Gazans to march unarmed towards the fence besieging the Gaza ghetto, to demand their right to return to the lands from which they’d been expelled. The Israeli occupation forces killed Ahmed’s family because Israel feared the power of his words.”

On top of cutting off electricity to the Strip, voices of dissent are being extinguished by Israel’s brutal bombing campaign. Since October 7, Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 24 Palestinian journalists. Family members of Gazan journalists have also been targeted. On October 25, an Israeli airstrike killed wife, son, and daughter of Al Jazeera correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh.

Israeli attacks have massacred 7,028 Palestinians, including 2,913 children, in Gaza.

In an audio recording to ISM days before the attack on his family home, Ahmed said: “This did not start on October 7. Unfortunately, the world has been blind to the suffering of the Palestinians for decades. Only when Israel lost people, did the outside world pay attention here.

“What’s happening now in Gaza is exactly the same thing Israel started in 1948. The Israeli government is not targeting Hamas. As all of can see on the TV and internet, the vast majority of the targets in Gaza are civilians, neighbourhoods, hospitals, churches and mosques. And it’s not only Gaza, in the West Bank there is the Smotrich plan to displace Palestinians. This confirms how it’s an Israeli strategy of genocide and completing the Nakba of 1948.”

Golan added: “Help us to spread Ahmed’s message, and put an end to Israel’s massacre in Gaza. We need you to raise your voices, so that Palestinians and those facing genocide, will not be silenced.”

ENDS

Notes to editors:

The International Solidarity Movement is a Palestinian-led non-violent direct-action movement, founded in 2001. Read more about ISM here.

Return Solidarity is a group of anti-Zionist Israelis working in solidarity with Palestinians in support of the Great March of Return. Learn more about their actions here.

A video of Ahmed Abu Artema calling on the international community to put an end to Israel’s bombing of Gaza here.

” The man behind Gazan’s Great March of Return” – Al Jazeera documentary.

“The Gazan leading a popular uprising against Israel”, CNN.

WATCH: British-Palestinian children in Gaza call on Rishi Sunak to stop Israel’s massacre

‘I’m scared. They keep bombing children.’

Jenna and Nur, two British-Palestinian sisters in Gaza, have called on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to stop the bombing in a video message.

Jenna is just five years old, and Nur is seven. The sisters are living under constant bombardement, and are now homeless.

In 19 days of relentless attacks, Israeli airstrikes have killed 2,704 children in Gaza: that’s 140 children every day.

Instead of demanding a ceasefire, Sunak and the leader of the opposition Keir Starmer have given Israel the greenlight to commit war crimes, sending weapons and support, and silencing Palestine solidarity at home.

Call on all international leaders to Stop the Genocide in Gaza now! Watch and share!

Total War – The Economic Backbone of the Occupation

Gazans being held by Israeli police. Photo from one of the workers.

15 October, 2023 | International Solidarity Movement | al-Khalil

EXPLOITATION AND OCCUPATION

Hundreds of Gazan workers are being given refuge in Palestine, after having been dumped in the West Bank by Israel.

45 of them are in al-Khalil and the ISM spoke to many of them this evening.

These labourers were working in Israeli settlements. When Hamas broke out of Gaza they were rounded up, detained, and at least one of them was beaten and hospitalised. They spent four hours in prison, their phones confiscated and without contact with the outside world. One man says 6500NIS was stolen from him by the police.

Apartments have been provided by charitable individuals and groups are giving them food and bringing them brand-new clothing to replace the belongings they were not allowed to bring from Israel.

SO WHAT WERE THESE GUYS DOING IN ISRAEL?

After 16 years of blockade, Gaza’s economy has collapsed. Gazans buy Israeli work permits so as to get jobs as labourers in construction or hospitality. These permits, valid for one month, are purchased from specialised companies and cost 3,000 NIS. Gazan workers earn 6000 NIS monthly for 45 hour weeks. Israelis would be paid around 20,000 shekels for doing an equivalent job. These migrant workers have no health insurance or job security. They have to be married, too.

Women migrant workers find jobs in factories or in agriculture. Manual labour is the only option available to people from Gaza. One of the workers we spoke to has a degree in engineering, one qualified as a social worker and another was a teacher.

Visits to their wives and families are possible at weekends, and they try to return at least twice a month. Travel through the Eretz crossing involves a long wait of up to 12 hours, the crossing opens at 4am on a Sunday morning to let them through. Everything is checked, and they can’t take clothes through, so clothing has to be bought (at high expense) in Israel.

The guards at the border can deny entry at will to anyone, whether or not they have a permit. Israeli intelligence often interrogates and threatens the workers, hoping to add them to the network of informers in Gaza.

THE LUCKY ONES

We were told that around 1,500 migrant workers are still detained or missing in Israel. Their families in Gaza were asking for information about them.

We heard that, when Israel declared war, one of the employers of Gazan workers informed the police that the people working for him were terrorists. We saw a video of corpses after the police intervention. The people shot were colleagues of one of the men we spoke to. Here are their names:

Hashim Barawi (killed)

Suliman Al Atar (killed)

Hary Al Masry (location unknown)

Sahel AL Masry

Nabil Al Barrawi (injured)

Talal Warshasha (injured)

The workers intend to use every legal means possible to obtain justice.

NOT WAR BUT EXTERMINATION

The situation these men are in is difficult, but they are distraught about the situation in Gaza and worried about their families. “My son works with the emergency services, Israel bombed his ambulance, the driver was killed and my son is injured.” “My building was bombed, and my wife and kids are now living in a tent.” “I keep phoning my wife, but there is no answer.”

They denounce the lies and hypocrisy of the international community in its support for Israel. Western countries talk about law and democracy, but they respect neither. How can they support this massacre, this lack of humanity?

One of the men sums it up: This is not war, it is extermination.

Despite the atrocious, immoral position of the countries whose passports we hold, only one man didn’t greet us warmly. Hearing we were from European countries, he said he didn’t want to be in the same room as us.

I was totally sincere when I replied that I understood his feelings, that we are in Palestine because of our countries’ responsibility in the destruction of Palestine, because we don’t agree with Europe’s policies and that we would like to do what we can to tell people about what is happening here. If you’ve read this far, please help us in getting the word out and stopping this genocide.

CALL TO ACTION: No Ground Invasion of Gaza

13 October, 2023 | International Solidarity Movement

Occupation forces have issued a 24-hour deadline for 1.1 million civilians in northern Gaza to evacuate to the southern parts of the besieged enclave. The demand for a harrowing evacuation of terrified civilians includes an order to clear out all UN workers from the area. This is obvious preparation for a disastrous and brutal ground invasion.

Over 1,500 civilians have been killed, including hundreds of children and more than 6,000 people have been injured. A ground invasion will greatly exacerbate the loss of civilian life and the suffering and misery of the people of Gaza.

Contact your representatives NOW and demand that they put an end to the Israeli government’s blatant violations of international humanitarian law and end the oncoming ground invasion. Light up their phones and email inboxes. Circulate this alert widely!

Script:

Hello, my name is _______.

I am calling because I am horrified at the violence being inflicted on the civilians of Gaza. A ground invasion will greatly exacerbate the loss of civilian life. Urge restraint NOW!

-NO GROUND INVASION must be allowed to occur.

White House

President: Joseph Biden

Online: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Comments: 202-456-1111

Switch Board: 202-456-1414

TTY/TTD: 202-456-6213

Vice-President

Vice President: Kamala Harris

Online: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Comments: 202-456-1111

Switch Board: 202-456-1414

TTY/TTD: 202-456-6213

U.S. House of Representatives

Phone: 202-224-3121

U.S. Senate:

* Telephone: 202-224-3121

* Website: http://www.senate.gov/

Find your representative’s contact information in the house of Congress by ZIP code

If you are based in the UK, find your local MPs contact information here: https://members.parliament.uk/members/Commons

He did nothing, but he didn’t survive

By. Diana Khwaelid for ISM

Al-Baqa al-Sharqiya village-Tulkarm – 11-10-2023

Ali Alyan, 31, a resident of the village of Baqa al-Sharqiya, northeast of the city of Tulkarem, was killed by the Israeli Iron Dome rockets which were countering the resistance rockets fired from Gaza near the occupied city of Ashkelon. Tuesday evening – 10-10-2023.

Ali was married with two sons, he was working at his workplace with his eldest son when the rocket was intercepted, he and his son were injured, he and his son were taken to the hospital, but he did not survive and his son miraculously survived. Five other citizens were injured by shrapnel and burns as a result of being hit by the Israeli Iron Dome rocket, sent to intercept the Palestinian reistance rocket.

The resistance’s rockets were intercepted by the Israeli Iron Dome at the same time as the war with Gaza was being fought.

Severe damage resulted from the interception. Five Palestinian houses in the village were significantly damaged as well as three cars belonging to Palestinian citizens, four shops were damaged, a workshop which was near the site of the Iron Dome rocket launch. The main street in the village was destroyed.

Ali, who was working in one of the workshops near the launch of the rocket, did not know that it was his last day, and he did not know what would happen to him, he was working in his workshop safely, and yet he did not survive.

It was sad day in the city of Tulkarem and the village of eastern Baqa, to bid farewell to the young Ali Alyan and mourn him. His body was laid to rest on Wednesday morning, and his family took a last farewell look. Ali left his family, friends, wife and children behind him. Hundreds of Palestinians participated in the funeral of
the martyr Ali Alyan and chanted angry phrases in solidarity with the people of Gaza at a time when the Strip is going through difficult and sad times.

He was taken to the mosque so people to pray for him, after which he was transferred to one of the village’s cemeteries, the residents of the village of Baqa al-Sharqiya declared mass mourning in the village, out of respect and in honor of his soul.