Demonstration: Stop Israeli war crimes in Gaza

dublin | anti-war / imperialism | event notice Wednesday July 05, 2006 22:35 by IPSC - IPSC cdevos at tomaatnet dot nl

Protest the Israeli invasion of Gaza and
the attempted overthrow of the
democratically-elected Palestinian National Authority

Meet at Central Bank, Dame Street, Dublin at 2:00 PM

The situation in Gaza is deteriorating rapidly. Israel’s deliberate targeting of the civilian infrastructure of Gaza such as bridges and Gaza’s main power station has meant, as PENGON (The Palestinian Environmental NGOs Network) reports, that 860,000 Gazans are without running water or electricity, and that Gaza faces a severe environmental and humanitarian crisis.

Perhaps even more serious is Israel’s kidnapping of half the democratically elected Palestinian government and a quarter of the parliament – a blatantly illegal act against a democratic assembly which amounts to little more than an attempted coup d’etat. As Israeli journalist Gideon Levy points out, these actions have nothing to do with freeing the Israeli soldier held by Palestinian militants, but are simply an ‘act of vengeance’, which will only serve to plunge Palestine/Israel into yet more conflict.

The IPSC calls upon our government to make clear representations to the Israeli ambassador that Israel’s flouting of international law and basic humanitarian norms are not acceptable. We also call on the government to withdraw from the Israel-led boycott of the democratically elected Palestinian government. Even before Israel’s invasion of Gaza, this boycott had threatened to plunge the Palestinian territories into a humanitarian catastrophe. Such a catastrophe appears ever more likely now. We ask Irish people to join our demonstration this Saturday at 2pm at the Central Bank in Dublin, to show their solidarity with the Palestinian people and their revulsion at this terror campaign Israel is waging against them.