Demonstration Saturday 12pm Platt Fields, Rusholme, Manchester.
Israel out of the Olympics and FIFA
240 Gaza footballers killed in 9 months
Stop Gaza Genocide
During 17 years of Israel’s medieval siege on Gaza so many sportsmen and women and many children have been denied their freedom to follow their dreams to become footballers and athletes.
In the last 9 months over 240 Palestinian footballers in Gaza have been murdered. During Apartheid in South Africa it took a lot less for South Africa to be banned from international sports. The time is now for global sports authorities to say enough is enough.
Children in Gaza follow football as much as the youth do anywhere in the world, generally supporting Real Madrid and Barcelona.
During Israel’s blockade athletes could not travel to join with other Palestinians for sporting events. The blockade and occupation stopped sports equipment and coaches from coming into Gaza.
Now Israel has bombed and turned to rubble all of the football stadiums and 2 weeks ago they even directly bombed children playing a football match at one of the schools for displaced families, killing many of them.
For years campaigners have demanded that FIFA eject Israel from international football tournaments and be banned from major sporting events like the Olympics.
How much is acceptable now that so many famous Palestinian athletes have been murdered during this 9 months of genocide and destruction of the Gaza Strip?
Over 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and with those unnaccounted for in the rubble this includes over 20000 children. 10 children a day have lost a leg or both legs even when they survived the endless Israeli assaults on Gaza.
There is no space in sport for a genocidal state that has practised Apartheid and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians for the past 76 years.
This Saturday we stand with Palestinian athletes of all kinds and stand with the children whose sporting dreams have been shattered again and again by Israel’s horrific massacres and occupation of the Palestinian people.
All out 12pm Saturday 27th July, Platt Fields, Rusholme M14 6LA (next to the costume museum.)
