Category: Press Releases

Free Gaza Movement launches its “Right to Read” Campaign

Free Gaza Movement

9 June 2009

In partnership with Al-Aqsa University, the Free Gaza Movement (FG) is launching its “Right to Read” campaign which will use the FG fleet to deliver textbooks and other educational supplies to universities throughout the occupied Gaza Strip.

“This is not a charitable endeavor,” notes FG Chair Huwaida Arraf. “Rather it is an act of solidarity and resistance to Israel’s chokehold on Gaza and attempt to deny Palestinians education. Dr. Haidar Eid, a professor at Al-Aqsa University and coordinator in Gaza for the campaign adds, “Education is a right. Yet throughout history, societies have used access to education as a weapon of oppression. We refuse to let Israel blockade our students’ thirst for knowledge. We welcome working with Free Gaza and others to break this siege against our people’s greatest resource.”

According to UNWRA, Israel’s blockade restricts paper, ink, and other learning materials from entering into Gaza. As a result of Israel’s hermetic closure of and repeated military attacks on the Gaza Strip, an entire generation of students in Gaza is growing up stunted intellectually and academically; they are trying to learn in circumstances that no student should have to endure. More than one-third of Gaza’s children and university students started the school year missing necessary textbooks and vital school supplies.

Al Aqsa University serves nearly 14,000 students, both male and female. During the assault, it sustained nearly $1.4-million worth of damage including significant damage to its library. Fourteen students and one professor were killed during the assault. This effort allows individuals as well as institutions around the world to support Palestinians’ rights to education by donating new and used copies of textbooks to be delivered by the FG fleet.

The first “Right to Read” shipment will be sent on FG’s Summer of Hope July voyage to Gaza To learn more about the program and to send books, please visit the FG campaign web page at http://freegaza.org/right-to-read?lang=en.

Royal Ontario Museum proceeds with unlawful exhibit

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East

7 June 2009

Dear Friends,

Later this month, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) will be showcasing artifacts illegally seized by Israel in 1967 after it occupied East Jerusalem. In cooperating with the Israel Antiquities Authority to import and exhibit the Dead Sea Scrolls, the ROM would be in violation of Canada’s obligations under UNESCO legal conventions and protocols, and its own obligations as a member of the Canadian Museums Association (CMA).

Please click here to send an email to officials at the ROM, the CMA as well as provincial and Federal party leaders.

More Info

The Dead Sea Scrolls were largely excavated from Qumran (see map below) in the West Bank between 1947 and 1956 by the Palestine Archaeological Museum with the Department of Antiquities of Jordan and the École Biblique Française. The Scrolls were in East Jerusalem until 1967.

Map of Qumran

As a signatory to the UNESCO Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict (1954), as well as the Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970), Canada cannot import cultural property from an occupied territory, and must, if it can, take the cultural property into custody and return it to the competent authorities of the territory previously occupied at the end of hostilities. The Palestinian Authority objects to the exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls because they were illegally obtained.

The CMA sets out in its Ethical Guidelines that museums “must avoid even the remotest suspicion of compliance in any illegal activity,” and that “museums must guard against any direct or indirect participation in the illicit traffic in cultural and natural objects; this may include natural or cultural objects that are: stolen; illegally imported or exported from another state, including those that are occupied or war-stricken; illegally or unscientifically excavated or collected in the field.”

Considering its legal obligations, the ROM should not under any circumstance import the Dead Sea Scrolls until they have been returned to the competent authorities in the West Bank.

Warmest thanks,

The CJPME Leadership
CJPME Website

Prevent Alstom from building the Haramain Express Railway

Saudi Arabia awarded French company Alstom a multi-million dollar contract for the construction of Haramain Express Railway, to link the holy cities of Makkah and Madina. Alstom is in violation of international law for its part in the construction of the Jerusalem Light Rail, which will link illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory (including East Jerusalem) with the city of Jerusalem. The construction of the light rail is part of a wider Israeli policy to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from Jerusalem and turn permanent the illegal occupation of the city.

The decision by the Saudi Arabian authorities is in violation of its own international commitments. The Arab League barred member states from dealing with companies involved in the construction of Jerusalem Light Rail project. The Saudi contract sends a signal of approval for Alstom’s actions in Jerusalem and highlights the lack of integrity of the Haramain project: the Saudi Arabian government has chosen to link two of Islam’s holiest cities by sponsoring the colonization of another.

Across the world a divestment campaign is taking pace against Alstom and its partner company Veolia, with victories in Sweden and France. In 2006, Dutch ASN Bank took the responsible decision to divest from the project. Alstom and Veolia are accused by Palestinian civil society, represented by the BDS National Committee, BNC, of complicity in grave violation of international law and Palestinian rights for their role in the JLR project. Despite the pressure, the two companies have refused to end their participation in the project. With construction at an advanced stage, Alstom and Veolia are guilty of actively colluding with Israeli apartheid.

  1. Write to the Saudi Railway Organization and to the Saudi Arabian diplomatic representation in your country demanding immediate cancellation of the contract with Alstom.

    karni@saudirailways.org (Vice President)
    shafqatrabbani@sro.org.sa (Project Manager)
    salim@sro.org.sa (Project Manager)
    sohail@sro.org.sa (Project Engineer)

    Please bcc us on your correspondence: saudialstomdivestment@gmail.com

  2. Sign the petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/BDSaudi/petition.html
  3. Write about this issue in your local media. Discuss it in your local mosque and community centers. Participate in actions for boycott, divestment and sanctions of Israel.

Find Out More!

The Case Against Veolia and Alstrom:

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians From Jerusalem:

Playground for bombed kindergartens in Gaza

For Immediate Release:

Sunday 7th June, 10:00, Erez checkpoint

More than 750,000 children are incarcerated without a trial in Gaza – the largest prison in the world. It is forbidden to send toys and playground equipment into Gaza.

The Israeli authorities define even paper and crayons a “Security Hazard”. In defiance of this obituary and cruel regulation, a delegation of Israeli and American feminists, residents of neighboring towns, the clownish doctor Patch Adams and the Israeli Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (ICIRCA), will travel on Sunday to the Erez Checkpoint. We will come to the sealed crossing armed with Slides, Swings, Kites, Magic castles and similar deadly weapons, in order to pass them through to the besieged and bombed kindergartens in Gaza.

The action is organized by the Coalition of Women for Peace (Israel) and Code Pink (USA). The Code Pink activists have already achieved the construction of one kindergarten playground in Gaza, and staged a rally during President Obama’s speech in Cairo, demanding the president put his money where his mouth is, and cut the US funding of the siege on Gaza.

Patch Adams, the protagonist of the 1998 Robin Williams film, will stage a border-line clown show deflating the ballooning cruelty and arrogance of the siege and highlighting the absurdities robbing the children of Gaza of their right to a life of safety, freedom, and laughter. The Clown Army will be aiding and abetting.

Code Pink will attempt to traffic the playgrounds through the border. If apprehended by the Israeli army, insistent on denying the children of Gaza – hundreds of whom have been killed and thousands orphaned in the long years of siege – the fundamental right of PLAY, the Playgrounds will be erected on the border.

Infant dies as Israel prevents him from leaving Gaza Strip to undergo medical treatment in East Jerusalem

Al Mezan

5 June 2009

Infant Dies as Israel Prevents Him from Leaving Gaza Strip to Undergo Medical Treatment in East Jerusalem, Al Mezan Calls for Immediate Lifting of the Siege on Gaza

At around 7.30am on 3 June 2009, seven-month-old Zein Ad-Din Mohammed Zu’rob died in the intensive care unit at European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis. Medical sources at the hospital reported to Al Mezan that he died as a result of respiratory system and heart failure. According to Al Mezan investigations, Zein’s family obtained a medical referral for him to undergo medical treatment at Al-Maqasid Charity Hospital in East Jerusalem for 30 days starting from 18 May 2009.

On 20 May 2009, Zein’s family went to Al Mezan’s office in Rafah where they authorized Al Mezan to pursue the case and assist with efforts to secure a permit for the child and his family to travel to Jerusalem. The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) did not respond to the requests made regarding this matter until 3 June 2009.

Medical reports show that Zein was suffering from a severe lung infection which resulted in bronchial asthma and general weakness in his growth. Doctors at European Gaza Hospital said that the main cause of the deterioration in the child’s condition was an infection with a pancreatic cyst. They explained that hospitals in the Gaza Strip do not have the ability to conduct the necessary tests and that he was therefore referred to Al-Maqasid hospital in Jerusalem for tests and treatment.

Al Mezan Center has followed up this case with the victim’s family in cooperation with Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I), which contacted the Israeli District Coordination Office (IDCO) at Erez Crossing. The IDCO’s answer was that they had not received an application for permission for the child to cross Erez to Jerusalem. Al Mezan Center contacted the Palestinian District Coordination Office staff in Gaza, who reported that they had sent an application for the child on 25 May 2009.

This is indicative of the serious problem of the complex bureaucracy faced by Gazans who need to leave Gaza seeking healthcare in Israel or the West Bank. They have to leave Gaza via Erez Crossing. Only severe cases who suffer from conditions that are incurable in Gaza are allowed to apply for permission. Nevertheless, the application and processing of their request take long times and lack an effective follow-up mechanism. Many patients die while waiting for a response to their requests for permission to exit Gaza.

According to Al Mezan’s monitoring, many of the sick persons who applied for permits to leave the Gaza Strip through Erez crossing were informed that they had not applied, even though the Palestinian Liaison Office had sent the applications days or weeks previously. Patients therefore have to wait even longer to receive a response, change their appointment at the hospital outside of Gaza, and then apply again for a permit thereby losing precious time waiting for a response which may be positive or negative. Al Mezan documentation also demonstrates that the receipt of a permit to exit Gaza through Erez crossing does not necessarily mean that patients will be allowed to leave. The IOF obstructs many patients who have been issued with permits, searching and interrogating them, and exploiting their need to travel for reasons of ill-health to pressurize them into collaborating and providing information about the activities of the resistance in the Gaza Strip. Many Palestinian patients have died after being ordered by the IOF to return to the Gaza Strip after refusing to collaborate.

Al Mezan Center for Human Rights condemns in the strongest possible terms Israel’s siege on the Gaza Strip and its prevention of Palestinians from travelling to undergo medical treatment which is unavailable in Gaza. Al Mezan holds Israel responsible for the deaths of over 35 sick persons in the Gaza Strip who died as a result of Israel’s refusal to allow them to leave Gaza, and dozens of other persons who have died in Gaza’s hospitals as a result of the blockade, closures, the lack of treatment, and the lack of electricity and fuel.

Al Mezan asserts that Israel, as the Occupying Power in effective control of the Gaza Strip and its crossings, bears legal responsibility to ensure that Gaza residents can access adequate medical care, in a time which enables them to receive appropriate treatment without delay.

Further, Israel has a clear responsibility toward the population of the Gaza Strip to enjoy their fundamental right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health in accordance with its obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. This obligation includes ensuring the availability of appropriate healthcare and the ability of each individual to access it.