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PSA STATEMENT : IDF MILITARY ATTACKS ON GAZA

The Palestine Solidarity Alliance hereby condemns with utmost contempt the most recent large – scale military offensive by the IDF.

In a recent statement by Hamas Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, “The Israeli occupation forces started a new round of violence against the Palestinian civilians last Friday when they abhorrently targeted the Palestinian peaceful protesters at the Great Return March, killing and wounding a number of Palestinian civilians deliberately and intentionally. On the same day, the Israeli forces opened fire on a group of Palestinians who were three kilometres away from the separation fence”.

Furthermore, Haniyeh stated, that “since Friday the Israeli occupation has intensified its attacks on civilian targets in the Gaza Strip, striking homes, civilian locations, and governmental sites and killing infants, women, and elderly people”.

The PSA and the world remain horrified by the innocent victims murdered by Israeli aggression where one-year old infant baby Seba Abu Arar and her pregnant mother were murdered in Gaza by the bombing of their residential home by IDF warplanes.

So many young Palestinian children, infants and babies have fallen to the ruthless oppressive IDF aggressors who continue to perpetrate the most abominable crimes against humanity with impunity. How many more of the innocent and young must die before there will be accountability for these crimes?

The PSA demands of the South African Government together with its Law Enforcement Agencies immediate and sustained decisive action in the investigation and prosecution of Israeli apartheid provocateurs who finance the IDF, aid and abet young South African Jewish citizens and nationals to serve in the IDF. The PSA demands all those complicit in breach of our laws who serve and conduct unlawful military activities abroad in occupied Palestine be held accountable.             

The PSA joins the international call demanding that the Israeli apartheid apparatus cease all military targeting of innocent civilians and Palestinian children. The apartheid regime is reminded of its obligations under international law, international humanitarian law and the Geneva conventions in protecting the rights of the occupied people of Palestine.

Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip have endured tremendous suffering, including three horrendous wars perpetrated by the IDF in 2008-2009 (Cast Lead), 2012 (Pillar of Defence) and 2014 (Protective Edge) where war crimes were perpetrated against a civilian population.  

The continued abuse, exercise of collective punishment, imposed military sieges and blockades remain an unacceptable status norm.

The PSA shall continue to demand for the protection of the rights of the Palestinian oppressed and for the apartheid regime to be held accountable for its egregious violations under international law.

The Right of Return remains an inalienable right and aspiration of the Palestinian people who march to the boundaries only of territorial limitation imposed by the occupying belligerent apartheid regime to express their aspiration for dignity and freedom. Palestinian families and children all participate in this extremely important advocacy campaign.

The world has witnessed apartheid Israeli snipers who have shamelessly attacked and murdered innocent civilians, journalists of the media and medic personnel since inception of the Right of Return March. This Israeli aggression is a microcosm of the broader belligerent occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Palestinian cities, towns and villages.

Ethnic cleansing through the Judaization process, conditioning Israeli settlers with incitement to cause harm, implementing checkpoints in Palestinian cities like Hebron and Jerusalem, and the continued torture, ill treatment and denial of access to legal  representation, limitation of access rights to family visitation of Palestinian and child prisoners in Israeli prisons all point to Israeli blameworthiness in an institutionalised campaign of apartheid and torture classified as crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 adopted on 23 December 2016 relates to the illegal Israeli settlements in “occupied Palestinian territories since 1967, including East Jerusalem“.

The aforesaid resolution declares that Israel‘s expansion settlement activity constitutes a “flagrant violation” of international law and has “no legal validity”. It demands that Israel cease such activity immediately and fulfill its obligations as an occupying power under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Israel’s systemic policies constituting inter alia:  institutionalised apartheid, Judaization of east and west  Jerusalem,  home demolitions, extra judicial killings, forcible transfer and/or displacement of Palestinian populations, ethnic cleansing, cantonization of  Palestinian neighbourhoods (restrictions imposed on freedom of movement, association and trade), arbitrary military checkpoints, administrative detention, house arrests of Palestinians and children living in the West Bank and the occupied Palestinian territories continue to remain oppressive and unjust systemic policies perpetrated in order to alter the demographic composition of historical Palestinian populations living in and surrounding Jerusalem.

The PSA and its solidarity partners have also previously demanded that Israeli government officials and military war commanders be held criminally responsible for war crimes perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza.

The PSA supports the call for a one state solution, the right of return of Palestinian refugees and the right of self – determination, within a constitutionally free and democratic society.

The PSA demands through the South African Government and international institutions for the immediate cessation of IDF military aggression in the Gaza Strip and for respecting, restoring and upholding entrenched fundamental rights of human dignity and freedom of the Palestinian people.

Statement Issued by the Palestinian Solidarity Alliance

Enquiries:      Attorney Ziyaad Patel – 083 309 5238

            Firoza Mayet – 083 634 6093

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