Stop Israel’s Killing Of Palestinians!
End Israel’s Attacks On Gaza!!!

In the latest grotesque human rights violations and brutality since Israel’s 2014 ‘Operation Protective Edge’, we as organisations in solidarity with the people of Palestine are outraged by the latest act of brutality and premeditated murder by the Zionist Israeli state against the Palestinian people. We have no words strong enough to condemn what has now become known as the “Passover Massacre”.

On Friday March 30th 2018, on the Christian holy day of Good Friday and the Jewish holy day of Passover, Israeli military snipers opened fire on peaceful unarmed Palestinians who were participating in a protest action in Gaza called “The Great March of Return” to their lands from which they were illegally expelled (Ethnically Cleansed). The “Great March of Return” was planned as a peaceful demonstration to coincide with the  commemoration of the ‘Nakba’ (The Catastrophe) of 1948, and bring world attention to the ongoing siege of Gaza.

Gaza has been under siege by the Israeli state for over a decade now since 2007, and has become known as the world’s largest prison. The United Nations, Human Rights Watch and international human rights agencies have described the situation in Gaza as a humanitarian disaster.

In response, the Israeli military, from across a security fence separating Israel and Gaza, opened fire with live ammunition on the peaceful Palestinian demonstrators, killing 18 people and wounding up to 1500 people. The demonstrators included women and children Palestinian refugees. This latest calculated act of brutality is beyond the pale of tolerable behavior for any so called sovereign state, and the international community must hold the Israeli state accountable for these acts of war crimes.

In a detailed report on the “Passover Massacre”, Human Rights Watch held the Israeli state fully responsible for what it describes as “calculated” killings of unarmed civilians in violation of international law.

On Friday 6 April thousands of Palestinian refugees again gathered outside the camps in the Northern Gaza Strip to continue their protests for the Right to Return. The Israeli army again fired live bullets at the protesters, killing 7 people and wounding more than 700, including 77 children and 17 women. The Israeli forces were stationed 50-100 meters inside the border fence, rendering a far distance between them and the protesters, who were raising flags, singing folk songs and flying kites with only a few numbers of the protesters attempting to approach the border fence in order to throw stones and raise flags. Thus, the distance between the soldiers and protesters could not in any way have posed any threat to the Israeli soldiers.

The return to occupied Palestinian lands is the legitimate and inalienable right of every individual Palestinian refugee. They have the right to protest and bring world attention to their plight and we have a moral obligation to respond. It is now more important than ever, for ordinary people across the world to take up the cause of the oppressed and dispossessed Palestinian people, to demand the boycott and isolation of the apartheid state of Israel by supporting the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, to bring an end to the decades of state terror inflicted on the Palestinians.

We have formed a Palestinian Collective as different organisations and will have various solidarity actions.

As a Collective:

• We demand the ANC led government to employ the same peaceful means of boycotting and isolating the Apartheid State of Israel that was so successful against the Apartheid South African regime, by severing all diplomatic, cultural and trade links with Israel.
• We call on all citizens of conscience to join us in our solidarity efforts to bring world attention to the violence and gross human rights violations perpetrated against Palestinians by the Zionist State of Israel.
• We call on the international community to enact its own resolutions in pursuit of justice for Palestinians by ending the impunity with which the Zionist State of
• Israel continues to perpetrate gross violations of human rights against the Palestinians.
• We call on the International Courts of Law to find the Zionist State of Israel guilty of war crimes against Palestinians.

Issued by: The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Palestine Solidarity Forum (PSF – UCT), Palestine Solidarity Alliance (PSA – UWC), Claremont Main Road Mosque (CMRM), South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU), National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), South Africa Communist Party (SACP – WC), SA Jews for a Free Palestine (SAJFP), Muslim Students Association Union (MSAU)

s against Palestinians.