JOHANNESBURG/ PNN /
Marking the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, ActionAid International said today that it joins the international and human rights organizations all over the world to mark the international solidarity Day with Palestinian People stressing its commitment towards supporting the inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.
On this occasion, ActionAid International said in a statement that it stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people and continues its support of Palestinians’ rights to self-determination, freedom, justice, and independence. ActionAid called on the international community to pressure Israel to stop its increasing violations of those rights.
ActionAid reminded the Member States of the United Nations that they have a moral and legal obligation to implement the recognition of Palestine as an independent state and end the occupation. “We call on the international community to break the silence about the ongoing suffering and oppression of Palestinians,” it said.
The country director of ActionAid Palestine, Ibrahim Ibraigheth said: “international solidarity is essentially needed due to the continuity of injustices and oppression that are practiced against the Palestinian people by an illegal Israeli occupation. The human rights of Palestinians guaranteed in the international law as rights to life, housing, dignity, freedom, movement, education, and other rights are being denied on daily basis under the silence of the international community.”
The year 2022 has been the deadliest for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since 2015. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the Israeli occupying forces have killed more than 200 Palestinians so far- 51 of that number are children, the majority shot by Israeli forces or armed settlers in the occupied West Bank. At the same time, in August 2022 Israel launched yet another aggression against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, during which 49 Palestinians, including 17 children, were killed, and another 335 were injured.
This year has also witnessed the continuity of Israeli policies of illegal settlement expansion, home demolitions, systematic forced displacement, movement restriction and land confiscation. These policies steal more Palestinian lands and natural resources, said ActionAid. Palestinians across the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) are also denied coping with the impact of the climate crisis by depriving them from enjoying their environmental rights.
Meanwhile, 2.1 million Palestinians live in an open-air prison in Gaza Strip under a blockade that has illegally been imposed for more than 15 years depriving them from basic human rights and causing humanitarian and environmental crises, and a lack of water and electricity. Only 4% of water is fit for human use.
The Palestinians also lost one of their iconic and inspirational journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, an Al-Jazeera correspondent who was killed by the Israeli army in May while she was performing her media duties, and her coffin bearers were beaten by Israeli police. In addition, Israel continues attacking the Palestinian civil and political space by designating six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations including Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Al-Haq, Bisan Center for Research and Development, Defense for Children International – Palestine, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees and the Union of Palestinian Women.
These violations committed by Israel pushed leading human rights organizations such as B’tselem, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International to consider them as the crimes of apartheid against the Palestinian people.
The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) declared in the year 1977 November 29, the day in 1947 the UNGA voted to partition Palestine into an Arab and Jewish states leading to the Palestinian Nakba, or catastrophe, that is still ongoing, as International Day for Solidarity with Palestinian People.
