Endorse the call: https://forms.gle/f4QYRUqsUoZjaR2Q9
Eleven years after “Operation Cast Lead,” Israel’s onslaught against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network asks organizations to endorse the call by the Higher National Commission of the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege for a global mobilization on 24-30 March.
Like Israel’s 2008-2009 offensive, which massacred over 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 300 children, wounded over 5,000, and destroyed 3,540 homes, leaving more than 20,000 Palestinians homeless, its free-fire policy against the Great Return March showed the genocidal nature of its project for the liquidation of the Palestinian people.
And no less than the heroic resistance of Palestinians under 22 bloody days of Israeli bombardment, the Great Return March, which continues even after Israeli fire killed over 200 marchers and injured nearly 20,000, poses a crucial challenge for all supporters of Palestine.
Ask your organizations, networks, coalitions, and movements to endorse the Higher National Commission’s call and start organizing actions now. Samidoun will post an initial list of endorsers soon, then continue to update it as the international week of action nears.
Just fill out our Google form at https://forms.gle/f4QYRUqsUoZjaR2Q9; e-mail the name, Web address, and location of your endorsing organization to samidoun@samidoun.net; or message them to Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network on Facebook.
24-30 March 2020, worldwide: International week of action to support the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege
Join Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip in a global mobilization on the second anniversary of the Great Return March to demand the right of return for Palestinian refugees and an end to Israel’s siege of Gaza.
On March 30, 2018, tens of thousands of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip launched the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege.
Israel’s violent repression of it exacted a gruesome toll, with its occupation forces’ live ammunition, tear gas and rubber-coated steel bullets massacring 214 Palestinians participating in unarmed demonstrations and wounding 18,764 more.
But the demands of the Great Return March – an end to Israel’s brutal closure of the Gaza Strip and the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees ethnically cleansed from their homes – remain no less critical nearly two years later.
Seven years after the United Nations first warned that the conditions imposed by Israel’s siege would render Gaza unlivable by 2020, its crises of electricity, water, employment, and food security have already reached the breaking point.
This isolation of the Gaza Strip is part of Israel’s strategy to displace the Palestinian people, fragment our society, and liquidate our national movement.
Its plan, which started with the ethnic cleansing of 720,000 Palestinians in 1948, continues today with the use of walls, checkpoints, and roads to divide Palestinian neighborhoods and communities; the demolitions of Palestinian homes and institutions in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and 1948-occupied Palestine; the seizure of Palestinian land for Israeli settlements; the targeting of Palestinian leaders for political detention; and the exclusion of Palestinian refugees from their occupied homeland with lethal force.
Yet Palestinians have never paused our legitimate struggles for return, self-determination, and national liberation, from the armed Resistance, to general strikes, to Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns, to the Great Return March.
Since 2018, Palestinian refugees have persevered against unbelievable odds, braving Israeli occupation fire and risking injury and death to demand our right to return to the homes from which Israeli occupation forces drove us at gunpoint.
As the second anniversary of the Great Return March on 30 March – Palestinian Land Day – nears, we call on its supporters worldwide to join an international week of action to support its demands between 24-30 March 2020.
- Have an activity to support the next Freedom Flotilla, which will sail in 2020 to challenge Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.
- Build a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign against a target complicit in Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights and international law.
- Hold a screening of a documentary on Israel’s crimes against Palestinian refugees and the Gaza Strip and their struggle for liberation.
- Rally in solidarity with the Great Return March in a public area.
- Host a speaker on the Great Return March and its demands.
- Target political officials in your country to demand they publicly oppose Israel’s crimes against Palestinians and impose meaningful sanctions for them.
In all your efforts, we ask that you visibly support the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege and our just demands.
Please send announcements of your events, as well as pictures, videos, and reports from them, to samidoun@samidoun.net, or message them to Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network on Facebook.
On this, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, we call on the world, its people and movements to escalate their support for Palestine and our century-long struggle for national liberation.
Higher National Commission
Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege
Gaza, Palestine
29 November 2019
Endorse the call: https://forms.gle/f4QYRUqsUoZjaR2Q9
