La Via Campesina Statement: Day 527 of Genocide, Israeli Occupation Continues Massacres in Gaza
(Bagnolet: March 18, 2025) At dawn today, the Israeli occupation resumed its genocidal war on Gaza, launching a brutal wave of airstrikes that have now massacred over 412 Palestinians and injured at least 562 in just a few hours. The number of martyrs and injured is still rising, with countless people trapped under the rubble.
For 527 days, the Israeli occupation has carried out a campaign of extermination against the Palestinian people across the Gaza Strip. For 17 days, since March 2, it has sealed Gaza’s borders shut, refusing to allow in even the most basic humanitarian aid, cutting 2.3 million people off from food, medicine, and fuel. The entire population of Gaza has been left to starve under an enforced famine, while Israeli bombs continue to rain down.
Hospitals, refugee tents, and entire families have been deliberately targeted in the latest Israeli massacre. The Director of the Gaza Health Ministry reports that the health situation is catastrophic, with 25 out of 38 hospitals out of service, and the remaining unable to meet needs. The director of Al-Shifa Hospital shares that every minute, one of the wounded dies due to lack of resources.
Even during the so-called “ceasefire,” the Israeli occupation continued to kill Palestinians and block lifesaving aid. Today, it has escalated its genocide, slaughtering hundreds in one of the bloodiest days since October 7, 2023.
This is genocide. It is an organized, systematic attempt to erase the Palestinian people, and the world is allowing it to happen.
Many Western governments, led by the United States, are directly responsible for these massacres and active participants in the genocide. They continue to arm, fund, and shield the Israeli occupation as it commits ethnic cleansing, mass famine, and war crimes in broad daylight. Their calls for “restraint” are meaningless while they send bombs and billions to fuel the Israeli killing machine.
We demand immediate, material action:
- End the genocide: The world must enforce an unconditional end to Israeli attacks and block any further military aggression.
- Open Gaza’s borders: The complete closure of Gaza since March 2 is a death sentence. The world must force the Israeli occupation to open all crossings immediately and ensure the unrestricted entry of food, medicine, and fuel.
- Total arms and trade embargo: Every government still sending weapons to the Israeli occupation has Palestinian blood on its hands. We demand an immediate halt to all arms sales, military aid, and trade agreements with the Israeli occupation.
- Sanctions and prosecution for war crimes: Genocide is happening in real time, and those responsible must be held accountable. The International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) must act now to prosecute Israeli leaders and impose real consequences, and third states must abide by their legal obligations accordingly.
- Dismantle corporate complicity: Agribusiness giants, arms manufacturers, and corporations profiting from Palestinian land theft and destruction must be boycotted, divested from, and held legally accountable.
Global Mobilization for Palestine
This genocide will not stop unless the world forces it to. We call on all people of conscience, unions, activists, and communities worldwide to escalate their actions: block arms shipments, disrupt trade, shut down complicit companies, and refuse to allow business as usual while Gaza is being slaughtered.
We call on every person of conscience, every movement, every front-line worker, every farmer’s union to take action NOW. Boycott, divest, sanction, protest, disrupt, resist. There is no neutral ground in genocide.
Gaza will not be erased. Palestine will be free.
La Via Campesina