June 5th marks the 37th anniversary of 'al Naksa', the occupation of the remainder of historic Palestine including Jerusalem’s Old-City - the most tragic episode in Palestine’s history after the 1948 'Nakba'.
No less significantly, it marks the 2nd wave of Palestinian dispossession and displacement, scattering Palestinians, many for the second time, as refugees within the occupied territories and across neighboring Arab countries.
Today, 37 years later, around four million Palestinians continue to endure a harsh and repressive military occupation and over 2.5 million registered refugees located outside Palestine continue to bear an abstinent presence in overcrowded refugee camps, while awaiting a peaceful settlement.
The preamble of UN Resolutions 242 and 338 “emphasize[s] the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war” and is the basis for peace negotiations. It calls for the “[w]ithdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict” (1967 war). Yet Israel however, continues to defy international will and violate UN resolutions that call for an end to Israeli occupation. Israel has been able to persist in its violations of international law with impunity largely because of US complicity and preferential treatment. Since 1972, the U.S. has vetoed over 35 UN resolutions that are critical of Israel.
Israel’s occupation is continuously growing more brutal and vile. During the past 42 months alone, Israeli military and settlers have killed over 3000 Palestinians, the majority of which were defenseless civilians. Israel also continues to demolish homes and uproot trees, dispossessing people of their homes and livelihoods. Over the past four years, over 21000 people have been left homeless due to Israeli home demolitions. In Rafah alone, during the past month more than 3800 were rendered homeless, many of whom are refugees since 1948.
Israel’s many policies of home demolition, assassinations, incommunicado detentions, closures among many others continue to remain Israel’s preferred methods to subjugate Palestinians and break their aspirations of liberation and self-determination.
Israel’s current construction of a separation wall, in addition to expropriating further land for Israel’s gain, separates Palestinians communities from each other, leaving entire Palestinian cities and villages in unviable and hermetically sealed Bantustans. Israel’s occupation “management” is further aggravating a horizon-less political situation and radically alienating a possible political settlement, in addition to inevitably causing a major humanitarian crisis within these sealed areas.
The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of a Global Dialogue and Democracy (MIFTAH) calls for an end to Israel’s occupation and its return to the 1949 armistice lines and for the immediate implementation of all applicable UN resolutions.
It is imperative for the achievement of any peaceful political settlement that the international community act with integrity and decisiveness in upholding Israel to its obligations, under the relevant UN resolutions, to withdraw from Palestinian areas occupied on this day 37 years ago.
In the meantime, this day continues to stand for an unacceptably prolonged and dehumanizing occupation, as well as an incompetent and sometimes complicit international community involvement.
Al-Nakba - Uprooted, Dispossessed, and Displaced
Date posted: May 14, 2004
By MIFTAH
May 15th marks the 56th anniversary of al-Nakba (the catastrophe), the most disastrous episode in Palestinian history. 56 years ago, the Israeli state was established by systematically destroying 531 Palestinian villages and forcibly uprooting, dispossessing and displacing 737,166 Palestinian refugees.
Today, more than five million Palestinian, scattered all around the world, are still waiting for Israel to abide by UN resolution 194, which guaranteed their right to return to their original homes in historical Palestine (Israel).
Between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s “unilateral disengagement” plan and the U.S. government’s unfulfilled promises to establish peace in the Middle East, over 3,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the outbreak of violence on September 2000. In the last four days alone, 37 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza and over 215 injured, the vast majority of which were unarmed civilians.
Israel’s brutal occupation continues unabated as Israeli tanks roll through Palestinian villages, towns, and refugee camps; as Palestinian hospitals, ambulances and medical staff are attacked; as Apache gunships shell homes and assassinate their human targets; as Palestinian land is stolen and Israeli settlements are expanding; and as Israeli prisons swell with Palestinians.
The worst is yet to come, as Israel turns all Palestinian areas into prisons and isolation cells with the construction of the Apartheid Wall, which consists of eight meter high cement blocks constructed on the east of 1967 borders, aiming to annex more Palestinian lands, severely restrict freedom of movement, and deny Palestinians access to hospitals and schools and adequate water resources.
The imposition of such a barrier on Palestinian land is a gross violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, international law and Oslo agreements, presenting yet another form of illegal collective punishment that has been practiced against Palestinian civilians by Israel for so long.
The international community has failed to restrict such atrocious acts and has tacitly allowed Israel to remain above the law in blatant defiance of UN Resolutions 242, 181, 338, and most prominently 194.
The Palestinians rights should not be folded in the pages of history and forgotten, or compromised in agreements forced by an American administration that has become complicit in the Israeli occupation’s lawlessness and violations of international law. Neither Israel nor the U.S. can negotiate on behalf of the Palestinians or compromise and relinquish their inalienable rights.
Ben-Gurion University professor Lev Greenberg wrote, in a recently published article in the Belgian daily 'La Libre Belgique,' “The government of Israel is asymmetrically liquidating and destroying the Palestinian people. Israel has invented bureaucratic jargon to camouflage its criminal acts: murder becomes targeted killing; occupation and repression are called the peace process. The Palestinians have offered endless ceasefires. But Sharon responds by assassinating the democratic leadership of the Palestinian people. The government of Israel is leading the Middle East to Jihad. The world must stop Sharon immediately."
The urgency of his words resonates loudly on the anniversary of this tragic day.
Urgent Appeal to stop the ongoing Israeli Genocide and Sexual Violence in Gaza
Date posted: March 26, 2024
By MIFTAH
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:
- American Federation of Ramallah Palestine
- Association of women’s Action
- AWMR Italia - Donne della Regione Mediterranea
- Bisan Center for Research and Development
- Community Development and Media Center
- Cultura è libertà una campagna per la Palestina
- Enjaz Foundation for development
- Filastiniyat
- Human Rights and Democracy Media Center SHAMS
- Institute of Women's Studies
- Not to forget women society
- Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA)
- Palestinian Women's Action committee
- Rete Femminista Marche Molto+di194
- Rural Women Development Society
- Sinal do Vale
- Singola
- Teaching Palestine: Pedagogical Praxis and the Indivisibility of Justice
- The center for defense of liberties and civil rights “Hurryyat”
- The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy - MIFTAH
- The Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development-PWWSD
- The Regional Coalition for Women Human Rights Defenders in Southwest Asia and North Africa (WHRDMENA)
- Union of Palestinian Women Committees
- Wattan media network
- Women Media and Development
- Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
- رابطة المرأة العراقية
- شبكة المستقبل الديمقراطية العراقية
Where are the rights of Palestinian Women on International Women’s Day?
Date posted: March 07, 2024
By Palestinian NGO Forum to Combat Violence against Women
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!
MIFTAH calls for international accountability for heinous Israeli crimes
Date posted: February 22, 2024
By MIFTAH
In a recent statement, nearly five months into the Israeli genocide in Gaza, several UN experts confirmed the various reports and testimonies that have been coming from Palestinian women and human rights organizations for months now. In Gaza, women have been kidnapped and forcibly disappeared and placed in dire conditions in undisclosed locations. In the occupied West Bank, released prisoners testified on the horrific realities inside Israeli prisons and the widespread torture and ill-treatment where sexual violence is used as a weapon employed against both women and men. The targeting of women and girls with such atrocious crimes is targeting the most vulnerable, in an attempt to break and degrade the society as a whole.
The inaction and failure of the international community to stop Israeli crimes, namely the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and other heinous crimes all across Palestine for decades now has emboldened Israel to act with impunity. This allows Israel to continue committing horrific crimes against Palestinian women and girls, namely rape and other forms of sexual violence and torture.
The silence of “Western” feminists has also been appalling, given their earlier outrage about unsubstantiated Israeli allegations which were used to justify and commit the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
First and foremost, we demand an immediate ceasefire and the unconditional provision of humanitarian aid. In order to put an end to such heinous crimes and impunity, we reiterate the need for an independent international investigation into all crimes, especially sexual violence, followed by international accountability for the perpetrators.
