The undersigned Palestinian civil society organizations condemn the resolution passed by the Polish government and signed by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stating that the highest level of the Israeli leadership, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, can enter Poland freely. This comes despite the fact that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Netanyahu (another arrest warrant has been issued for the former Minister of Defence, Yoav Gallant).

Being a signatory to the Rome Statute, the founding document of the International Criminal Court, Poland is legally obligated to respect and abide by the Court’s decisions, including to carry out the arrest warrants for Israeli officials on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The double standards with respect to the ongoing genocide in Gaza are clear as Poland recently protested Mongolia’s decision not to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Respect and ensuring respect of international law and treaties is not a matter of political will. Adherence to the Rome Statute concerns fundamental obligations that must be respected by all State parties. Choosing to politicize international courts and cherry-picking which legal obligations to follow renders international law meaningless and poses a serious threat to the international law-based order.

We call on Poland to reverse this decision to fully comply with its obligations under the Rome Statute, implement the arrest warrants issued by the ICC, and abide by the ICJ Advisory Opinion calling on all States to not recognize Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory and to not render aid or assistance in maintaining Israel’s illegal occupation, as well as as well as decisions and orders by other international courts and UN resolutions. We further call on the international community as a whole to support the ICC, the ICJ, and uphold the integrity of the international legal system by abiding by their rulings.

Signatories:

• The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy - MIFTAH
• Al-Haq
• Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
• The Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center (JLAC)
• Defence for Children International - Palestine
• Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC)
• Bisan Center for Research and Development
• Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
• Al Mezan Center for Human Rights

This is an urgent and repeated appeal to the world to immediately intervene, in light of the recent stories of rape and sexual violence against Palestinian women by Israeli occupation forces during Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Palestinian women are being displaced, tortured, killed and forcibly disappeared, while the world sits idle. Silence and inaction in the wake of these horrifying crimes amount to complicity.

Over the past few days, more horrifying testimonies and stories have emerged from Gaza of sadistic acts by Israeli soldiers, including torture, rape, and mass field executions at hospitals where civilians are seeking shelter, medical treatment and refuge.

Palestinian civil society and UN experts have sounded the alarm multiple times and reported cases of rape and sexual violence before and during this genocide. These reports continue to be deliberately and inexcusably ignored, including by prominent and otherwise vocal feminist organizations and figures.

The deafening silence of “Western” feminists and mainstream media in particular is deliberate and inexcusable, as opposed to their earlier outrage over Israeli allegations and misinformation, used to justify this genocide.

Many Palestinian women and girls who are survivors of rape and sexual violence are hesitant to come forward, due to the social stigma in a conservative society and the belief that Israel will not be held accountable for such crimes.

Israel is committing the most horrific war crimes, and weaponizing rape and sexual violence against Palestinians as part of its genocide in Gaza and assault on the Palestinian people as a whole, throughout all of Palestine. This is the result of decades of impunity, preferential treatment and lack of international accountability by the international community. Words are not enough to describe or stop this horror; action is needed.

We conclude this SOS appeal by reminding our sisters and allies around the world that our rights, our dignity, and our humanity are indivisible. Forsaking Palestinian victims now for political convenience would be an unforgivable betrayal to decades of sacrifice and feminist struggle.

We call for:

• The international community must employ all available tools of international accountability, including political and economic sanctions, to bring an immediate and lasting ceasefire and provision of unconditional humanitarian aid.

• States must immediately impose an arms embargo on Israel and honor their moral and legal obligations, including those pronounced in the Genocide Convention.

• States need to investigate and prosecute Israeli soldiers with dual citizenship implicated in these atrocities.

• The Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict must honor her mandate and launch an immediate investigation into the ongoing atrocities.

• Feminists around the world must sound the alarm globally on the unspeakable human rights violations taking place in Gaza, namely the sexual abuse and rape of Palestinian women and girls.

• Journalists and media outlets must do their due diligence in reporting on these stories through fair and unbiased coverage.

Signatories:

1. American Federation of Ramallah Palestine
2. Association of women’s Action
3. AWMR Italia - Donne della Regione Mediterranea
4. Bisan Center for Research and Development
5. Community Development and Media Center
6. Cultura è libertà una campagna per la Palestina
7. Enjaz Foundation for development
8. Filastiniyat
9. Human Rights and Democracy Media Center SHAMS
10. Institute of Women's Studies
11. Not to forget women society
12. Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA)
13. Palestinian Women's Action committee
14. Rete Femminista Marche Molto+di194
15. Rural Women Development Society
16. Sinal do Vale
17. Singola
18. Teaching Palestine: Pedagogical Praxis and the Indivisibility of Justice
19. The center for defense of liberties and civil rights “Hurryyat”
20. The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy - MIFTAH
21. The Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development-PWWSD
22. The Regional Coalition for Women Human Rights Defenders in Southwest Asia and North Africa (WHRDMENA)
23. Union of Palestinian Women Committees
24. Wattan media network
25. Women Media and Development
26. Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
27. رابطة المرأة العراقية
28. شبكة المستقبل الديمقراطية العراقية

We, at the Palestinian NGO Forum to Combat Violence against Women and all Arab women’s and rights organizations raise our voices loud and clear on the eve of March 8, to say: “Stop the onslaught and crimes against women and children in Gaza. Stop the crime of genocide, the crime of starvation and forced displacement”. So far, this aggression has resulted in the killing of 31,000 Palestinians, over 70% of whom are women and children. Two women are killed every hour , in addition to many others still under the rubble. There are women whose fate is unknown, after being taken away by occupation forces.

Who will restore normalcy for us Palestinian women after these atrocities?

We have always held activities on March 8. We had a long list of rights we demanded and others we were able to achieve. However today, as the women of Gaza are being annihilated, we stand the length and breadth of our homeland and our Arab nations, angry, in a state of revolution and in deep mourning. Our demand today is to halt the genocide in the Gaza Strip and to halt the reproductive genocide against our women. We declare this day the day of Palestinian women, as they stand hungry in long queues, waiting for insufficient aid, terrified of the skies above them, filled with missiles of death. This is for the women whose bodies are exhausted, in camps for the displaced and in shelter centers, for those raped in prison and for their naked bodies stripped at checkpoints. It is for the menstruating women who cannot find sanitary products and for those with high-risk pregnancies who are starving, displaced and bombed. It is for the women whose wombs may be removed for the simplest of medical complications and those whose privacy has been violated because of overcrowded tents and displacement. It is for the mothers who could die at any moment and for all women whose Palestinianism has crucified humanity at the altar, amid deafening Arab silence, boundless American support and the complicity of several European countries.

Nevertheless, we continue to appreciate all forms of Arab and international support and solidarity with the Palestinian cause, which shows respect for our people’s dignity. Widening this solidarity will further reaffirm the justness of our cause. Hence, we await more action and movements in solidarity of our right to demand an immediate end to the genocide in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem, to forge our way forward towards freedom, self-determination and the establishment of an independent and fully-sovereign Palestinian state.

Today, we Palestinian and Arab women, reaffirm the following on March 8 and every day forward:

- To put pressure on Israel to immediately halt its aggression and to hold its leaders accountable for their crimes in violation of international law, the Fourth Geneva Convention and all international laws and treaties, towards delegitimizing this occupying entity.

- To open the Rafah Crossing and all crossings to allow aid in and the wounded out for treatment

- To dismantle the land corridor linking Israel with some Arab countries supplying it with goods

Long Live Palestinian Women, who stand steadfast and resistant in the face of the Zionist aggression We speak in the voices of Gaza’s women and say:

Halt the genocide…halt the onslaught immediately!

WASHINGTON (PMC) - Former US President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jimmy Carter on Monday voiced a sharp criticism of President George W. Bush’s ongoing policy in the Middle East, saying the current US administration was mistreating Palestinians while being ‘in bed’ with Israel.

“We’re in bed, you might say with the Israelis and we won’t even talk to the leaders of the Palestinians,” Carter said expressing anger at the Bush administration’s consistent attempts to sideline Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

In an interview with Sky Radio Network, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate accused Bush of doing very little to bring peace into the Middle East, especially because of Washington’s unequivocal bias towards its chief ally, Israel.

Winning the Nobel Prize was seen as a rebuke of Bush’s administration for its persistent push for a war on Iraq, threatening to drag the entire region into mayhem.

“We’re doing very little,” Carter said of Bush’s attempts to pacify the situation. “As a matter of fact, this administration has basically abandoned any real effort to bring about reconciliation between the Israelis and the Palestinians.”

Speaking on the day he received his prize, the former President stressed the US cannot be seen as a neutral mediator between Palestinians and Israelis.

“You have to be trusted by both sides…you have to deal equally with both sides, we’re not doing that,” Carter said, lamenting what he said was the end of a nearly 30-year US commitment to the Middle East peace process, AFP reported.

“I hope that eventually we will see the error of this procedure and get back into a real mediation role,” he added.

Carter, who was renowned for his peacemaking during and after his time at the White House, unleashed his harsh wordings prior to a visit by Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to Washington, which previously criticized Israel for its persistent killing of Palestinians and the dire humanitarian situation it is inflicting in the occupied Palestinian Territory.