After the Release of the Activists Abu Kask and Tiago, the Network of Palestinian NGOs and the Council of Human Rights Organizations Call for Escalating Popular Solidarity Campaigns

SadaNews - The Palestinian Network of NGOs and the Council of Human Rights Organizations issued a statement praising the international solidarity movement, from university students to labor unions and activists.

The statement read as follows: 

The Palestinian Network of NGOs and the Council of Human Rights Organizations salute the valiant international solidarity movement and its symbols, from university students to labor unions, and from free activists to defenders of rights against the colonial machine, as well as the heroes of the steadfast fleet. This unprecedented global movement, transcending borders and languages, has created a genuine pressure front and proven that the human conscience has not died, and that the will of peoples is capable of holding the most formidable systems of oppression accountable when official diplomacy fails.

We affirm that this solidarity movement has achieved a tangible partial victory in breaking the will of the occupation in the struggle against the siege, the crime of genocide, and the apartheid system, by forcing the release of the activists Saif Abu Kask and Tiago Avila. We recall moments of breaking the symbolic siege, exposing the occupier's narrative in international forums, disrupting arms deals, and compelling the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court to act, even if insufficiently. This victory, although not yet complete, has unsettled the settlement project and shown the world that the wall of impunity has started to crack.

In this context, the issue of Palestinian prisoners and detainees cannot be forgotten, as they represent the forefront of sacrifice and the conscience of the national movement. Thousands of them, including children, women, and the sick, have faced for decades and continue to endure the most heinous forms of systematic terrorism, physical and psychological torture, deliberate starvation, rape, and deprivation of the most basic human and legal rights guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law. The occupation has resorted to the mass killing of prisoners by enacting the death penalty law for prisoners, which reveals the fascism of the occupier. The occupation's prisons are slow extermination camps, and justice cannot prevail without their full liberation, uncovering the fate of the forcibly disappeared, and prosecuting the torturers.

Despite these achievements, the Gaza Strip and all occupied Palestinian territories continue to suffer under what is called the "Trump Plan for the Middle East" in its renewed version, which was nothing but an attempt to institutionalize genocide and cloak it with a flimsy political cover. What is happening is a continuation and intensification of the ethnic cleansing plan against our people: deliberate starvation, forced displacement, systematic destruction of homes, hospitals, and schools, and killing families, including children, in order to empty Palestine of its people and turn it into a land without soul, under the pretexts of voluntary displacement or false "Riviera" narratives. This savage colonial project is currently being carried out under a shameful green light from the American and European sides, with silent partnership from an international system that has yet to compel the occupation to cease fire and allow the entry of aid.

Based on the above, the Network of NGOs and the Council of Human Rights Organizations demand the international solidarity movement, in all its spectrums, to regroup and escalate its liberation struggle for:

- Activating campaigns for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions against the state of occupation, genocide, and apartheid.

- Prosecuting the leaders of the occupation, both political and military, for their crimes, by supporting investigations by the International Criminal Court and arrest warrants against them, and legally pursuing them in national courts under the principle of universal jurisdiction.

- Imposing an immediate and comprehensive military boycott and preventing any supply of weapons or lethal components to Israel, and dismantling military alliances with it.

- Providing international protection for the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and all places of their presence.

The partial victory achieved is a herald of a much fiercer battle, where the solidarity movement realizes that it is facing not just a racist occupation, but a colonial settler system that threatens international peace and security.

Isolating and holding it accountable is the only way to achieve peace, freedom, and justice, and to affirm our people’s right to self-determination and return.

The Palestinian Network of NGOs  The Council of Human Rights Organizations