La Via Campesina strongly denounces the crimes against humanity committed by the State of Israel on Palestinian People
(Harare, May 22, 2018) La Via Campesina strongly denounces the brutal repression, the crimes of war and crimes against humanity committed by the State of Israel to continue the illegal occupation of the land of the Palestinian people.
We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation.
On May 15, 2018, the day marking the 70th anniversary of the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948, the year of the expulsion of the expropriated Palestinian population from its lands and homeland; tens of thousands of Palestinians demonstrated in Gaza, in continuity demonstrations of the Great March of Return, actively claiming their right of return confirmed by the United Nations Decision 194, as well as the end of the 11-year-long blockade of Gaza and the revocation of the United States’ illegal decision to transfer their embassy to occupied Jerusalem.
That day, Israeli army snipers killed 62 Palestinians in cold blood and injured more than 3188, raising the death toll to 117 people, including 13 children, and more than 13,000 wounded since March 30, 2018, beginning of the Great March of Return; adding to the suffering perpetrated by the policy of Israeli apartheid depriving millions of Palestinians of their basic needs, their socio-economic rights, and their public and individual freedoms, which constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity according to the Rome Statute.
The massacre of May 15, 2018 comes after an international condemnation of the assassinations committed by the criminal state of Israel a few weeks before, which proves the blunt indifference and impunity of Israel, protected by imperialist powers headed by the United States.
La Via Campesina strongly condemns the continuous killings, usurpation, land grabbing, looting of natural resources and the policy of apartheid led by the criminal state of Israel against the Palestinian people, and urgently calls upon the peoples and States of the world to hold Israel accountable for its actions, including through boycott, divestments and economic sanctions.
We support the formal request of investigation submitted by the Palestinian Authority to the International Criminal Court and call on the Court to examine all the crimes committed by the Israeli state since the 2014 aggression.
La Via Campesina supports the Palestinian people who bravely fight for dignity, liberation and auto-determination. We call upon the free peoples and states of the world to provide moral and material support to the Palestinian people and to protect them against the numerous crimes they endure. We stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), the Palestinian member of LVC, which fights for food sovereignty, peace and justice in Palestine.
Long live the Peasants of the world, Long live Palestine and its people!
La Via Campesina