Tag: War crime

Protestors in Ramallah honor Razan Al Najjer, young medic executed by Israeli forces in Gaza

3rd June, 2018 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah team | Ramallah, occupied Palestine

Yesterday at midday, hundreds of protestors marched through the streets of Ramallah to mourn the execution of Razan Al Najjer, the 21-year-old medic who was executed by Israeli forces in Gaza on Friday.

Members of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society from across the West Bank, largely students, marched with portraits of Razan. Protestors held signs calling for #JusticeForRazan and end to Israeli war crimes and the seige in Gaza.

Hundreds of protestors march through the streets of Ramallah to mourn the execution of Razan Al Najjer, the 21-year-old medic who was executed by Israeli forces in Gaza on Friday (photo by ISM)

“Razan was providing first aid for people in the Gaza area and she was killed by live ammunition by Israeli soldiers,” says Dr. Muhammed Scafe, of PMRS. Dr. Scaafi emphasized that the murder of medical personel is a war crime and a breach of international law. “In accordance with the Geneva international code, medical teams have the right to provide first aid.”

Shatha Sameer Zaydya, a member of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, says she started volunteering with PMRS when she was a student in university. “I’m from the Sarfit area. We work a lot in Safit, Nablus, and Ramallah when we can. We face a lot of attacks from Israelis, and especially the settlers in the Nablus area, who want to kill and harm [Palestinians] and make us afraid.”

In accordance with the Geneva international code, medical teams have the right to provide first aid (photo by ISM)

Members of PMRS have been active in the West Bank and Gaza for the past 40 years. Today the organization has over 1.5 million volunteers. PMRS has provided urgent medical care to Gazans following Israeli violence 2012, 2014, and now in 2018 during the #GreatReturnMarch.

Yesterday afternoon, Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, president of the PMRS, welcomed mourners into the headquarters in Ramallah. The message, he says, of todays protest is to honor Razan and to show Palestinians in Gaza “that we are one people, that you are not alone, and that you are not going to suffer on your own.”

Peaceful demonstrators march through Ramallah to protest against Israeli forces targeting medical personnel, journalists, children and unarmed civilians during the ongoing Great Return March in Gaza

Gaza report: War against civilians

14th July 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

The war is now in its seventh day, the death toll is rising briskly, 17,000 people have fled Beit Lahia in the north after the threat of a land invasion, fishermen are prevented from accessing their fishing grounds, and sewer and water pipes for 70,000 people have been bombed.

It is no longer a question that the Israeli military is targeting civilians, and civilian infrastructure.

On the way to my shift to provide protective presence at al-Wafa hospital in the northeast, we stop at one of the many residential buildings that have been bombed, this one last night.

We see the devastation, with floors hanging vertically down, cars overturned by the blast, shattered windows on the street, and people, Palestinian civilians, trying to find belongings that might be salvageable.

The hospitals, which are already suffering from chronic shortages of medicines and essential medical supplies, are forced to prioritize patients. I have witnessed hospital staff forced to place two bodies on the same stretcher since it was full in the cold storage. I have seen dismembered and burnt people after a drone attack.

It is a war against civilians.

It is a war against the political unity between Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

It is a war against striving towards a Palestinian state.

It is a war for continuing occupation and colonization.

It is a war against, not for, peace.

End the Assault on Gaza: joint statement Gazan civil groups

23 June 2012 | Besieged Gaza, Occupied Palestine

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the latest Israeli war crimes committed against our people in the Gaza Strip. We call on the international community and the Arab and Islamic worlds, to take up their responsibility to protect the Palestinian people from this heinous aggression and immediately terminate the continuing Israeli policy of collective punishment.

Over the last 6 days, Gaza City has been bombed by Apache helicopters,F16 and drones. More than 16 civilians, including children, have been killed and more than 70 injured in Beit Hanoun, Jabalya, Khan Younus, and Gaza.

Gaza has been enduring Israeli policies of extermination and vandalism since June, 2006. The Palestinian people have already been under siege for more than 6 years. The continuing international conspiracy of silence towards the genocidal war taking place against the 1.5 million civilians in Gaza indicates complicity in these war crimes.

We call upon the international community to demand that the rogue Apartheid State of Israel end its siege. We also would like to remind the members of the UN that the International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law such as The Fourth Geneva Convention stipulate the protection of civilian lives and property, unless Palestinian women and children are not considered civilians.

Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU)
General Union for Health Services Workers
General Union for Public Services Workers
General Union for Petrochemical and Gas Workers
General Union for Agricultural Workers
Union of Women’s Work Committees
Union of Synergies—Women Unit
Union of Palestinian Women Committees
Women’s Studies Society
Working Woman’s Society
Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PSCABI)
University Teachers’ Association
The One Democratic State Group (ODSG)

Dr. Erakat deems Israeli’s canceling residency of Palestinians as ” war crime”

11 May 2011 | Palestine News Network

Member of the PLO Executive Committee and Chief Palestinian Negotiator Dr. Saeb Erakat was reacting to a report appearing today in the Israeli online Haaretz confirming that Israel stripped almost 140,000 West Bank Palestinians of their residency rights upon their departure from the occupied Palestinian territories between 1967 and 1994.

This represents 5.5% of today’s Palestinian population living in the West Bank . It also excluded around 20.000 Palestinian Jerusalemites whose residency rights have been revoked and hence have been denied the ability to return home.

“This report confirms our claims that Israel is engaging in a systematic policy of displacement in order to gain land for the expansion of more settlement-colonies and to change the demographic composition of the occupied Palestinian territories,” Dr. Erakat stated.

“This policy should not only be seen as a war crime as it is under international law; it also has a humanitarian dimension: we are talking about people who left Palestine to study or work temporarily but who could not return to resume their lives in their country with their families. It has been a crippling and life-changing situation that thousands of families have been forced to deal with since 1967,” Dr. Erakat added.

In statement sent out to press by the PLO office in Ramallah, Dr. Erakat pointed out that the report provides evidence that the Palestinian catastrophe is an ongoing process.

“Israel ought to restore residency rights to our people and permit families who have been separated for decades to be reunited. Israel’s actions violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that ‘everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country’.”

In light of such Israeli actions, Dr. Erakat called on those states in the international community that have yet to recognize the Palestinian state on the 1967 border to join those who have already done so. “Our right to self determination must not be subject to negotiations, including the right of our families to live in their homeland. It is time to put an end to the pain and humiliation caused by the continuation of the Israeli occupation,” he concluded.

Action Alert: Tell your MP that war criminals should be prosecuted not welcomed!

4 November 2010 | Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary William Hague reiterated the government’s commitment to urgently resolve the “unacceptable situation” with regard to universal jurisdiction during his visit to Israel.

The coalition government want to change the current legislation to give the Director of Public Prosecutions power over issuing arrest warrants against alleged international criminals who visit the UK

The change will make it easier for war criminals to escape justice – please take two minutes to email your MP and ask them to sign EDM 108 and make public their opposition to any change in the law. (If your MP has a ministerial position, please write to them anyway, asking them to write to the Foreign Office).

Currently, for a magistrate to issue an arrest warrants, serious evidence must be presented against the person concerned. The proposed change adds a political dimension to a legal decision and introduces a source of delay when urgent action may be required to stop a suspect escaping justice.

Britain has a duty to seek out and prosecute those responsible for war crimes.

Now more than ever, we need you to join the Palestine lobby of Parliament in three weeks and lobby your MP on the illegal siege of Gaza and universal jurisdiction. Email your MP and arrange a meeting for November 24th (2-6pm at the House of Commons).

For more information on what the change on universal jurisdiction would mean for Britain, read our briefing at: www.palestinecampaign.org/universal-jurisdiction

Let’s make sure Britain doesn’t become a safe-haven for war criminals.

In solidarity,

Sarah Colborne
Director of Campaigns and Operations

p.s. Join us for the rally after the Palestine lobby on November 24th at 6.30pm with speakers including Gerald Kaufman MP, Andy Slaughter MP, David Ward MP and Baroness Jenny Tonge.