Category: In the Media

The University of Manchester occupation in solidarity with Gaza

University of Manchester Students in Occupationmanunioccupation

Over 150 University of Manchester students have occupied the main university administration building in a demand for a stronger and more proactive position from the university on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The students have proposed a set of demands on the university’s Vice Chancellor Alan Gilbert, including a boycott of Israeli goods on campus, support for a day of fundraising with proceeds to the DEC fund, and that the university end research into manufacturing arms.

Students at other universities have taken similar actions over the last three weeks and have been successful in their demands.

The conflict has killed over 1,300 Palestinians and injured thousands. Tens of thousands of civilians have been left homeless. Head of the UN Palestinian refugee agency in Gaza, John Ging, is now joining international calls for an investigation into the war crimes of the recent action, wherein Israel stands accused of using banned weapons such as white phosphorus and cluster bombs, attacking medical facilities, including the killing of 12 ambulance men in marked vehicles, and killing large numbers of policemen who had no military role.

Over 500 students attended an emergency general meeting of the students union to discuss a motion on the issue of the crisis in Gaza, whereby the students marched on University administration headquarters, the John Owens Building, to draw up a list of demands.<

The peaceful occupation is planned to continue for as long as it takes to achieve its demands, and promises to welcome high profile speakers during the week.

DEMANDS
1. University of Manchester should issue a formal statement condemning Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip, acknowledging particularly the effects on educational institutions such as the bombing of the Gaza Islamic University and expressing concern about war crimes allegations.
2. Support a day of fundraising across campus with the proceeds going to the DEC Gaza appeal.
3. University to publicise DEC advert in any way possible (including banner on the website) and put pressure on the BBC and sky to show the DEC advert.
4. All furniture & surplus supplies from buildings that are being renovated to be sent to Gaza on the Viva Palestina convoy.
5. Join the BDS movement through stopping sales of Israeli goods on university premises, the University should also stop buying any campus supplies from Israeli companies.
6. That the university divests from all companies directly involved in the manufacture of weaponry. We also demand that the university takes the issue of transparency in their investment seriously.
7. That the university publicly supports its students’ right to protest, such as occupations. That in line with this, the university will provide its facilities for a “Students for Palestine” conference, second week of April 09.
8. To send a public message of solidarity to the Islamic University in Gaza, whose campus has been virtually destroyed, and publish it on the university website and distribute it to the university wide e-mail addresses.
9. To give at lease five scholarships for Palestinian students as well as providing at least five scholarships for Israelis who refuse to serve in the IDF.
10. That the university make a module on the history of Palestine available as an optional module for any University of Manchester student.
11. That home fees apply to Palestinians students wanting to study at the University of Manchester.
12. No victimisation for those taking part in the Occupation, and free movement in and out of the occupied spaced.

NLG Members in Gaza Document Executions of Civilians, Blocking of Humanitarian Aid, and Destruction of Civil Property

National Lawyers Guild

For Immediate Release—February 5, 2009

Contact: Paige Cram, NLG Communications Coordinator, 212-679-5100, ext.15

Gaza—On its second day in Gaza, the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) delegation witnessed the rubble of the American International School in Gaza. An Israeli aerial attack killed the watch guard on duty and completely demolished the school at 2am on January 3, 2009.

“Israel doesn’t want anything good or bright in Gaza. They want us to live in the dark ages, just waiting in line for gas and bread,” said Ribhi Salem the school’s Director, who previously spent 20 years living and teaching in Chicago. Salem noted that the school is modeled on American schools and teaches “American values.” Because of that, he said, the school has been attacked on two previous occasions by local extremists since it opened in 2000.

The American school was only one of thousands of buildings destroyed in the recent Israeli offensive. Guild delegates were alarmed at the indiscriminate attacks against civilian neighborhoods, which left thousands of Gaza’s residents homeless and living in UN-provided tents. Israeli forces also targeted local businesses, including a tahini and sweet factory in Jabaliyya, leaving the poverty-stricken population more aid dependant.

John Ging, Director of United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), told the delegation that although the need is much greater now because of the war, less food aid is getting in now than before the war. “Nine hundred thousand people need food aid now but on the amount of food we are receiving we can feed only 30,000 each day,” he said. “Thousands of tons of aid are piling up in Al Arish in Egypt and Ashdod Port in Israel,” said Ging. “People need food and blankets. . . its been two weeks and two days [since the ceasefire] and we can’t get enough food into Gaza . . . where’s the accountability?”

The seven delegates also witnessed the remains of the entire residential neighborhood of Izbit Abed Rabbo. Resident Khaled Abed Rabbo told delegates Huwaida Arraf and Radhika Sainath how he witnessed an Israeli soldier execute his 2 year-old and 7 year-old daughters, on a sunny afternoon outside his house there. Two other Israeli soldiers were standing nearby eating chips and chocolates at the time on January 7, 2009. “I will never eat chocolate again,” said Abed Rabbo, who was formerly employed by the Fateh-led Palestinian authority. His third daughter, Samar, was also shot and paralyzed by the same Israeli soldier. Samar, 4 years old, is currently hospitalized for treatment in Belgium.

Founded in 1937, the National Lawyers Guild is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has chapters in every state.

Israeli kidnaps five young men from the village of Bil’in near Ramallah

Ghassan Bannoura | IMEMC News

Five young men from the village of Bil’in located near the central West Bank city of Ramallah were kidnapped on Wednesday by the Israeli military.

Troops stormed the village then raided several houses and searched them.

During the search troops took five men away, including: the brothers, Ali and Haitham Hamdan Abu Rahma, and Hosam Mohamed Hamad, Qasim Hassan Hamad, Fahad Jalal Al-Khatib, and they took the detainees to unknown place.

Since nearly four years, Bil’in village is the scene of weekly nonviolent protest against the Israeli illegal wall being built in the West Bank

Aid workers and journalists risk life in Gaza

International Solidarity Movement volunteers Eva Bartlett and Ewa Jasiewicz were featured on Russia Today for their activism and reporting from Gaza.

Humanitarian workers and rights activists in Gaza are helping locals put their lives back together after the three-week-long Israeli offensive. Many aid workers were in the region during the fighting and came under fire along with residents.

South African dock workers union decides not to offload Israeli ship

Congress of South African Trade Unions
Congress of South African Trade Unions

Congress of South African Trade Unions

In a historic development for South Africa, South African dock workers have announced their determination not to offload a ship from Israel that is scheduled to dock in Durban on Sunday, 8 February 2009. This follows the decision by COSATU to strengthen the campaign in South Africa for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Apartheid Israel.

The pledge by SATAWU members in Durban reflects the commitment by South African workers to refuse to support oppression and exploitation across the globe. Last year, Durban dock workers had refused to offload a shipment of arms that had arrived from China and was destined for Zimbabwe to prop up the Mugabe regime and to intensify the repression against the Zimbabwean people. Now, says SATAWU’s General Secretary Randall Howard, the union’s members are committing themselves to not handling Israeli goods.

SATAWU’s action on Sunday will be part of a proud history of worker resistance against apartheid. In 1963, just four years after the Anti-Apartheid Movement was formed, Danish dock workers refused to offload a ship with South African goods. When the ship docked in Sweden, Swedish workers followed suit. Dock workers in Liverpool and, later, in the San Francisco Bay Area also refused to offload South African goods. South Africans, and the South African working class in particular, will remain forever grateful to those workers who determinedly opposed apartheid and decided that they would support the anti-apartheid struggle with their actions.

Last week, Western Australian members of the Maritime Union of Australia resolved to support the campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, and have called for a boycott of all Israeli vessels and all vessels bearing goods arriving from or going to Israel.

This is the legacy and the tradition that South African dock workers have inherited, and it is a legacy they are determined to honour, by ensuring that South African ports of entry will not be used as transit points for goods bound for or emanating from certain dictatorial and oppressive states such as Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Israel.

COSATU, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the Young Communist League and a range of other organisations salute the principled position taken by these workers. We also take this opportunity to salute the millions of workers all over the world who have openly condemned and taken decisive steps to isolate apartheid Israel, a step that should send shockwaves to its arrogant patrons in the United States who foot the bill for Israel’s killing machine. We call on other workers and unions to follow suit and to do all that is necessary to ensure that they boycott all goods to and from Israel until Palestine is free.

We also welcome statements by various South African Jews of conscience who have dissociated themselves from the genocide in Gaza. We call on all South Africans to ensure that none of our family members are allowed to join the Israeli Occupation Forces’ killing machine.

In celebration of the actions of SATAWU members with regard to the ship from Israel, and in pursuance of the campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, and our call on the South African government to sever diplomatic and trade relations with Israel, this coalition of organisations has declared a week of action beginning on Friday, 6 February 2009. The actions will be organised under the theme: FREE PALESTINE! ISOLATE APARTHEID ISRAEL!