This last week, Israel has increased the mass destruction inflicted upon the starving, grieving and injured Palestinians in Gaza, killing at least 81 in the last 24 hours. Including those under the mountains of rubble, over 20000 children have been slaughtered, many dying in their families’ arms.
Israel’s crimes stretch back 76 years, to the Nakba in 1948, when they ethnically cleansed Palestine to found the so-called Zionist state. They brutally cast out the native residents, and have since occupied and expelled the remaining Palestinian population.
While Palestinians in Gaza endure a genocide, Israeli militia run rampant through the West Bank, killing Palestinian men, women and children and occupying further land, fully protected by Israeli soldiers.
In addition to settler violence, Israel recently approved the largest ever land confiscation in the West Bank, and is increasing its forced displacement practices in the Naqab area in ‘48 Palestine, seeking to erase entire villages.
Israel is accelerating Palestinian home demolitions, forcing Palestinians to watch as Israeli bulldozers, guarded by soldiers, destroy their homes and livelihoods to pave the way for Zionist settlers.
After 76 years of violent dispossession, imprisonment and apartheid, how much more must Palestinians suffer? Why does the world watch as Palestinian prisoners are tortured and raped? Why does the media not utter a murmur of empathy when 4 Palestinian families are massacred in 24 hours, murdering at least 81 and injuring 198?
Where is the outrage at the remaining few hospitals submerged in the blood of children, parents, brothers and sisters? Or at Israeli snipers roaming the streets, targeting children and the elderly alike, such as 11-year-old Palestinian child Rasha Nahid Abdel Latif who was shot in the head as she fled from Israeli tanks?
The time is now for everyone to stand. Take action. Make the true story of Palestine known to the world, and put yourself in the way of the shameful kill-chain leading to our Manchester streets.
All out Saturday 20th July, 12pm, St Peter’s Square.