La Via Campesina Condemns Israel’s Renewed Assault on Gaza
(August 8, 2022) La Via Campesina – the international peasant movement representing some 200 million food producers across all continents united in our struggle for Food Sovereignty and Peasants’ Rights – categorically condemns the renewed Israeli attacks on Gaza and all of Occupied Palestine. We call for an immediate cessation of the attacks and for the Israeli Occupation to be held accountable for its crimes. Once again, the Israeli Occupation wages war on the people of Gaza using the most lethal of weapons killing 44 Palestinian civilians (a third of which were young children).
The besieged Gaza Strip – the most densely populated area in the world – is home to some two million Palestinians. It has been subjected to attack after attack in recent years, six major assaults since 2009. In these attacks, the Israeli Occupation has killed a total of 4,245 Palestinians including 621 women and 1,128 children. Another 22,800 Palestinians have been injured, moderately or otherwise, causing permanent disabilities for many. Massacres have been committed against more than 144 Palestinian families, with tens of thousands of homes completely or partially destroyed. Internationally prohibited weapons, such as incendiary phosphorous bombs, have been used by the Occupation.
On Friday, August 5th, 2022 the Israeli Occupation initiated its latest aggression. Whatever the Occupation claims to be doing, war crimes have again been committed. For us, the Occupation and its Armed Forces have embarked on another military adventure that serves Israeli political and electoral goals for this coming November. As has become the norm in Israeli elections, Palestinian blood is election material.
As La Via Campesina, we call on friends and allies alike to:
- Demand that the international community and all peace-loving people of the world condemn this renewed aggression for what it is: state-sponsored terrorism organized by an occupying power. People, organizations and institutions alike should speak the truth wherever and whenever they can – Occupation is a Crime!;
- Join the Boycott, Divest and Sanction Movement [https://bdsmovement.net/], rejecting the Israeli Occupation and its ongoing war on the people of Occupied Palestine, treating Israel as an apartheid state, prosecuting its leaders, preventing them from moving and traveling, and prosecuting them in international war crimes courts;
- Call for the immediate lifting of the siege on the Gaza Strip and the providing of basic needs and services of the population, especially in light of the ongoing siege since 2006;
- Reiterate that the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) guarantees peasants and indigenous people sovereignty over their own resources and their right to self-determination – something the Israeli Occupation and successive occupying governments deny to the Palestinian People;
- Standardize the application of war crimes processes for violators of human rights around the world, imposing sanctions on the occupation government and criminalizing their actions in international forums. It is totally unacceptable that Palestine remains under the daily violations of occupation, including wave after wave of illegal settlements, for over 70 years. The injustice must end.
No More War on the People of Palestine! Palestinian Rights are Human Rights!
End the Siege on Gaza! End the Occupation!
Globalize the Struggle!
Globalize Hope!