Sheffield Trade Union Council says:
“RESUMPTION OF ISRAEL’S WAR IN GAZA SPELLS UNPRECEDENTED HUMANITARIAN CATASTROPHE FOR PALESTINIAN CIVILIANS.
THE WORLD MUST INTERVENE TO RESTRAIN ISRAEL”
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Sheffield “Big Walk for Gaza” tomorrow Saturday 2nd December. 8 marches to city from Sheffield suburbs will converge on Devonshire Green for Palestine rally at 12 noon
“The breakdown of this short-lived truce and Israel’s resumed bombing of Gaza will cause a humanitarian catastrophe even worse than before,” claimed Martin Mayer, Secretary Sheffield TUC. “About 15,000 Palestinians have already been killed, 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million citizens are already homeless and displaced to southern Gaza, without shelter, inadequate food, water and fuel supplies. Winter is coming, disease is spreading and many bodies remain buried in the rubble. Much of Gaza lies in ruins yet Israel is now warning citizens of the south to move again as the IDF targets Khan Younis, Gaza’s second city. There is nowhere safe to go.”
Israel has been dropping huge 2000lb bombs on built up areas of Gaza, plus naval gunships have been pounding the enclave from the sea and tanks have shelled residential areas indiscriminately. Whole apartment blocks have been demolished in one blast and in some cases whole streets have been destroyed. This is not war carried out within UN guidelines nor can Israel justly claim they are minimising civilian casualties.
“Israel is not only practising collective punishment against the whole of the Gaza strip, it is indiscriminately killing huge numbers of Palestinians,” said Martin Mayer. “Netanyahu’s right wing war cabinet includes ministers who have openly talked about wiping Gaza from the face of the map, eliminating Palestinians to create a greater Israel free of non-Jews, and even describing Palestinians as “human animals. The world must wake up to the dangerous agenda of this apartheid state which has oppressed and displaced Palestinians for 75 years.”
Tomorrow Saturday 2nd December protesters will take to the streets once more for Palestine. This time there will be 8 marches from local suburbs into the city centre for a final rally with speeches at Devonshire Green. There will be huge sadness and anger tomorrow that a short-lived truce has ended and Palestinians face a terrible future over the next days, weeks or even months as long as the world fails to stop Israel’s brutal punishment of Gaza.
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For comment please contact martin Mayer tel: 0776 1078482
Sheffield TUC is a founder member of Sheffield Palestine Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, which includes Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Sheffield Labour Friends of Palestine and Kairos, a progressive Christian faith organisation. Many Sheffield organisations, community groups and trade union branches have signed up to be part of the coalition. Behind the current horrific violence in Israel and Palestine is a history of violent oppression by the apartheid state of Israel against the Palestinians communities whom it controls under military occupation. Palestinians have been fighting for their freedom for 75 years ever since the Naqba when Israeli terrorist gangs murdered and burnt Palestinian villages and drove 750,000 Palestinians from their land to create the state of Israel as a land for only Jews. For too long, the USA and UK plus many other western states have turned a blind eye to Israel’s behaviour in their support for a “strategic ally” in the Middle East. This can no longer continue. It must be clear now that peace can only ever be achieved by giving justice to the Palestinians and their freedom. Whether that is via the so-called 2 state solution (which many people now see as hugely problematic due to Israel’s separation of Palestinians into the West Bank and Gaza and its confiscation of huge tracts of the West Bank for illegal Israeli settlements) , or the one state solution whereby Israelis and Palestinians share one secular nation as equals. The latter may also seem unbelievable at present but that was the solution for apartheid South Africa.