- Emergency Rally at Dáil Eireann, 5.30pm, Monday 09 October
- Ceasefire Now – Irish Government should issue call for peace talks
- End the occupation of Palestine, end the siege of Gaza, end Israeli apartheid
- Support the BDS and sanctions campaign in solidarity with all Palestinians
The IAWM defends the right of the people of Palestine in their struggle against decades of Israeli occupation and oppression. Given the current escalation of violence we are calling a protest with TCD Student’s Union, the Union of Students in Ireland and People before Profit at Dáil Eireann at 5.30pm on Monday 09 October 2023 to express solidarity with the people of Palestine and demand that the Irish Government calls for a ceasefire and peace talks.
The lethal attack by Palestinians on Israel yesterday is the direct result of decades of brutal attacks, extrajudicial killings, indiscriminate bombings, settler violence, arrests and detention of Palestinians and the stealing and occupation of their land by a settler colonial Israeli regime.
It is particularly the result of attacks by the Israeli military within the occupied West Bank over the last two years that has seen the widespread killing of men, women and children and of the desecration of sites sacred to the Muslim faith.
In 2022 alone, Israel killed a total of 151 Palestinians and injured 9,875 in a surge of military incursions into the West Bank that involved unlawful killings, including that of 36 children. (Source: OCHA-OPT)
Gaza is an open prison with an estimated population of 2.3 million people, half of them children, crammed into the most densely populated piece of land on earth. Unemployment is at 50%. In August 2022 Israel launched an air offensive that killed 49 Gazans, including 31 civilians, 8 of them children. One Israeli rocket hit Al-Falluja cemetery in Jabaliya refugee camp killing 5 children (Source: Amnesty International).
So, there should be no surprise as to why Palestinians may want to attack Israel and sadly even kill and maim Israeli settler civilians. As an anti-war and peace organisation we mourn the loss of all civilian life but we recognise that Palestinians have a legal right to defend themselves and fight back against continued attacks by the apartheid regime of Israel. This right is enshrined in the UN General Assembly Resolution 37/43 which affirms that people struggling for independence and liberation from colonial rule have the right to use “all available means necessary, including armed struggle.”
The only surprise about the attack by Palestinians on Israel is in its daring. This has dealt a major blow to so-called Israeli military prowess and omnipotence and exposes the fact that the Israeli military is not invincible. It also shows that four Israeli wars against Gaza since 2008 have failed to subdue Hamas.
The Israeli apartheid Government is now disgracefully threatening ‘vengeance’ – as usual unconditionally supported by the US and EU powers – and has already indiscriminately killed hundreds of Gazan civilians in retaliatory air strikes, including 18 people from a single family (Source: RTE News). US President Joe Biden has offered Israel whatever military means it needs and warned Arab countries not to intervene.
This escalation by Israel, openly supported by the US and EU, will only lead to more death, destruction and suffering for civilians.
Only a diplomatic peace process that ends the Israeli occupation, ends the Israeli siege of Gaza and ends the Israeli system of apartheid will ensure an end to the continued violence and offer the possibility of a peaceful future for both Israelis and Palestinians.
The IAWM therefore calls for de-escalation, an immediate ceasefire and for meaningful peace negotiations that recognises as an objective a just peace for the people of Palestine. We call on the Irish Government to take immediate and urgent action to stop Israel’s revenge and reprisal against Gaza’s civilian population.
We are calling all anti-war activists to join our emergency solidarity protest at Dáil Eireann this Monday.
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