PETITION
STOP ISRAEL’S SIEGE AND ATTACKS ON GAZA
STOP THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND HUMANITARIAN DISASTER
18 JULY 2006
Sign the Petition List of Petitioners
On 28 June 2006, the Israeli Occupation Force launched a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip coupled with a complete siege on the whole Gaza Strip. In the shadow of the brutal attacks on Lebanon, this offensive is still threatening the entire life and society in the Gaza Strip.
Constant bombings and missile attacks – including prohibited ammunition containing toxic and radioactive materials1– fired on residential areas have killed 98 Palestinians and injured hundreds. Sonic booms as well are used to terrorize the population. The Gaza City power station has been destroyed along with roads, bridges, main water pipelines and main wastewater lines. 20 000 people – living since 1948 as refugees in Gaza – have been ordered by the Occupation Forces to leave their homes. Wheat flour mills, food factories, bakeries, water pumps and sewage plants are unable to work properly without electricity supply. Sanitation and health care is at risk. Much of Gaza has been without water and electricity for the past two weeks and diseases spread due to malnutrition, lack of water and electricity to preserve food and medicines2. The economy of Gaza is destroyed for years to come.
Under the pretext of security, Israel is continuing to carry out, through the Apartheid Wall, its long-term policy of occupation, discrimination and expulsion that amounts to ethnic cleansing and to the destruction of the material basis for the survival and development of Palestinian society as a whole.
The aim of the Occupation is clear to all that want to see: breaking Palestinian determination to resist within the Bantustans in Gaza or the West Bank and weakening opposition to the Israeli apartheid system faced on a daily basis. It is a message to all of our people within Palestine and all over the world that the Israeli plan for “final borders” that ghettoize our people on 12% of our land requires our surrender – to be forced upon us via bombs and starvation.
Despite Israel’s clear violations of International Humanitarian law and Human Rights law – tantamount to continuous war crimes - no proper international pressure and effective inter-governmental action has taken place to stop this, not now and not in the past 58 years of Israeli breaches of international law. In the UN Security Council the US has voted in favour of the Gaza offensive while the Quartet has kept watching. This needs to stop now!
In response, we the undersigned, civil society groups and individuals, call upon the United Nations bodies, governments and parliaments all over the world to take a first step to stop Israel’s war crimes against our people. We urge them to take appropriate action to force Israel to end its siege and attacks on Gaza immediately, so as to prevent a full blown and deadly humanitarian and environmental crisis from taking effect.
Sign the Petition List of Petitioners
