‘Grave violations of international law’
BYM joins coalition of UK charities, human rights and faith organisations to speak up for rights of Palestinian people.
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has said that it has been ‘appalled’ by the violence in Israel and occupied Palestine, calling for these ‘grave violations of international law’ to ‘end immediately’.
Paul Parker, recording clerk for BYM, said: ‘Our Quaker testimonies to peace and equality compel us, once again, to speak out on this issue. At this time (11 May), over 850 people (840 Palestinians and at least 21 Israeli police officers and 7 Israeli civilians) have been wounded. In Gaza, 24 Palestinians including 9 children, were killed overnight.’
‘The latest round of this 73-year cycle of violence has taken place amid provocative and discriminatory actions by the Israeli government. There are threats to forcibly remove more Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem in favour of Israeli settlers, which the UN has warned may constitute a war crime, and tear gas and stun grenades have been fired by Israeli soldiers into the Al Aqsa Mosque as Muslims meet in worship for the end of Ramadan. We have seen violent crackdowns on peaceful protestors, retaliatory rockets fired indiscriminately from Gaza into Israel and airstrikes from Israel kill civilians in Gaza.’
BYM also joined a coalition of UK charities, human rights and faith organisations to speak up for the rights of Palestinian people.
The letter says that ‘as events in Israeli occupied East Jerusalem and Gaza have illustrated, today in Palestine, no home is safe, no civic institution secure, no holy site sacred as long as the promise of the Palestinians’ inalienable rights, including the right to return remains unfulfilled’.
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