The current Israeli attack on Gaza has claimed the lives of more than 35,800 Palestinians. The assault began after the Hamas operation on 7 October 2023, but it is a continuation of Israel’s 76 years of attacks on the Palestinian people.
The Israeli army is currently engaged in an assault on Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, which it had previously designated a ‘safe zone’. Millions of Palestinians in Gaza were pushed out of other parts of the Strip since 7 October, and forced to flee to Rafah, where they were told they would not be in danger. But 90,000 people have been forced to flee again from Israel’s May assault on the city. Meanwhile, the Rafah crossing into Egypt has been completely closed since the start of May, leaving people with nowhere to go.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has finally issued arrest warrants for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Yoav Gallant, for charges including crimes against humanity. Three European states, Spain, Norway and Ireland, have made moves to formally recognise the State of Palestine. Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich retaliated, vowing that Israel would build a new colonial settlement in the West Bank for every state that recognised Palestine. Smotrich also said he would withhold tax revenue from the Palestinian Authority in retaliation for Spain, Norway and Ireland’s actions.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled on Friday in favour of South Africa’s renewed demand for provisional measures to stop the attack on Rafah. But the actions of states and international institutions are not even close to enough. The Palestinian Boycott National Committee (BNC) wrote recently: “Despite these atrocities, western governments have continued supplying arms to Israel’s genocide…” They added “Impunity and complicity have to end now!”
Here is a short list of just some of the global Palestine solidarity actions over the last few days. This is not a comprehensive list, as actions are happening all the time.
– One of the actions called for by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is that people should take direct action against arms shipments to Israel. In Spain, people organised to answer that call. Public pressure prevented a vessel that was likely carrying weapons from docking in Cartagena. A second ship, the Marianne Danca, was denied the right to land by Spanish authorities.
– People took to the streets in Koper, Slovenia, against a ship carrying arms to Israel docking at a Slovenian port.
– In Seattle, US, people are planning a 25 mile march this weekend, symbolising the length of the Gaza Strip.
– In Finland, students started an encampment two weeks ago at the University of Helsinki. Similar occupations of universities have sprung up worldwide, inspired by the resistance of students at Columbia, and other US universities.
– UK campaign group Palestine Action are calling for a solidarity demonstration with a comrade in prison in Doncaster. He was arrested for damaging a US-owned factory which was making weapons for Israel. On 17 April, the group occupied the roof of the Teledyne arms factory in Shipley, and on the same day caused damage to the offices of Scotiabank, who are investors in Israeli weapons company Elbit systems.
– Students at the UK’s Oxford University faced arrests, as police tried to break up a sit-in for Palestine.
– New solidarity encampments were set up at universities all over Sweden.
– The European Legal Support Centre has announced that it has begun litigation against Dutch company Booking.com, over the online booking firm’s promotion of holidays in Israeli settlements.
– In Canada, people are planning to come together next week to shut down CANSEC, the country’s largest weapons exhibition which starts on 29 May. Several companies supplying weapons to Israel will take part. Also, an art installation depicting the attack on Gaza has been set up on the grounds of Vancouver Art Gallery.
– The Blackstar Film Festival in Philadelphia, US, announced it would be joining the campaign for a cultural boycott of Israel.
– Solidarity demonstrations were held in Yamanashi, Japan. Demonstrators called for Japanese company FANUC to end its complicity in the Gaza genocide.
– The city council in Cambridge, UK, has passed a motion backing a ceasefire in Gaza, and calling for an end to UK arms sales to Israel.
– Australia’s University of Melbourne has bowed to student pressure and agreed to disclose its funding arrangements with arms companies. The university’s decision comes after four weeks of student occupation.
– In Berlin, students occupied Humboldt University in protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. They set up barricades and spray-painted solidarity slogans on the walls before being evicted by police. At Germany’s University of Maastricht, Jewish student occupiers have launched a hunger strike over research ties with the Israeli-owned Rafael and Elbit weapons companies.
The global actions for Palestine are being spurred on by calls from occupied Palestinians. One such call came this week from Ahmed Abu Artema, who is the founder of Gaza’s Great March for Return movement, and a supporter of the campaign for One Democratic State in all of historic Palestine. He has lost his son and his home in the Israeli attack, and is currently under Israeli bombardment in Khan Younis. Artema wrote this week in The Nation: “A few decades ago, the world became convinced that it was unacceptable for the apartheid regime in South Africa to continue, that such a system was contrary to global moral values, and took concrete action to demand that apartheid end. We need the same global moral clarity and action today when it comes to Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza and its apartheid system, which is the root cause of all the violence in the region.”
Abu Artema concluded: “I try to imagine what a future governed by values of justice and human rights might look like. But unless the world acts now to stop the destruction and displacement against an entire people, my city, and Gaza itself, may be no more.”
Read more about the global calls to action in support of Palestine here.
