Palestinian civil society calls for international protection

Source: PNGO

The Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO, focal point of Social Watch in Gaza and the West Bank) denounced the brutal repression suffered last Sunday by peaceful demonstrators at the hands of Israeli forces. The protests were convened to commemorate the sixty-third anniversary of the Nakba, the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian when the State of Israel was created. Israeli soldiers used live bullets against the demonstrators.  

The PNGO greeted the statements of solidarity to the people of Palestine issued by Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and other countries of the Arab world. The protests were called to defend the right of the Palestinian exiled people to return to their land and the rights to independence, freedom, self-determination and national sovereignty.

The network called the international community to prosecute and hold accountable "the war criminals in Israel" for killing and wounding hundreds of demonstrators in the Palestinian territories in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and on the border with the neighboring Arab countries of Lebanon and Syria.

The organisation also called the international community to exert pression on the Israeli government to stop the repression, to protect the Palestinian people and to impose a boycott on Israel. 

"The blood that mingled in Maroun al-Ras, Majdal Shams, Gaza, Ramallah, Hebron, Jaffa, Galilee and the Negev confirm that the calamity will remain the most prominent sign of historical injustice inflicted on our people throughout the last century," stated the PNGO.