Declaring August 3rd a national and international day in support of Gaza and the prisoners

Ramallah - Ma'an - The Preparatory Committee for the International Day in Support of Gaza and Prisoners announced Saturday, August 3, 2024, as a national and international day in support of Gaza and prisoners. The head of the Prisoners Club, Abdullah Al-Zaghari, said in a press conference held today, Sunday, at the headquarters of the Al-Bireh Municipality, that the massacres committed by the Israeli occupation in the Gaza Strip, and the crimes it commits against detainees, constitute a basis for national unity and victory over the occupation. During his reading of the statement issued by the Preparatory Committee, he stressed the necessity of activating all available tools to urge the world, with the support of free and honorable people, to take decisive and serious steps to stop the genocide that has been ongoing for ten months against the people of the Gaza Strip, and to save the prisoners from another aspect of the genocide. He added: 'The genocide did not begin after October 7th. The ongoing genocide today is nothing but an extension of the ongoing catastrophes against the Palestinian people, and over the decades the human world has failed to uphold the right, achieve justice and freedom for our people. Finally, the world has failed to stop the genocide of children, women, the elderly and fetuses in their mothers' wombs. All of this was supported by major powers in the world, competing to protect the existence of the occupying (state), as its ministers compete over who is able to invent new tools and policies to erase the existence of the Palestinian people, and who is more skilled at killing us, persecuting us and tightening control over our lives.' The statement stressed the importance of the decisions of peoples, countries and international transnational institutions that supported and took important steps to support the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, and called for the imposition of an immediate and comprehensive military embargo on Israel, including the export, import and tra nsfer of weapons, military equipment and dual-use items, and the termination of all other forms of military cooperation, such as training, joint research, investments, and others. The statement also called for legal sanctions on Israel, including diplomatic, economic and financial measures, ending all other forms of complicity with Israel's illegal military occupation, and reactivating the UN Special Committee against Apartheid to help eliminate Israel's apartheid regime and hold those responsible accountable. He called for suspending Israel's membership in the United Nations and stripping it of its privileges and membership, as happened with South Africa during the apartheid era, and suspending its participation in the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris, its membership in the International Federation of Association Football, and all similar international and regional forums and events. The statement of the Preparatory Committee for the International Day in Support of Gaza and Prisoners called on the European Union to suspend the Schengen Agreement, which benefits terrorist settler gangs and Israeli political and military leaders who participated in the genocide and in the killing and torture of prisoners. In turn, the Governor of Ramallah and Al-Bireh, Laila Ghanem, stressed that the expected participation of the Palestinian people and the free people of the world in the national and international day to support Gaza and the prisoners must be as large as the expected events. She said that the world stood and stands in support of Palestine and in rejection of the massacres and crimes of the occupation in the Gaza Strip and inside the prisons, but there are parties that were not satisfied with neutrality and participated in the attack on the Palestinian people and their cause. Ghanem praised the efforts of all local and international institutions that worked to declare the international day, which aims to raise the voice of Palestine locally and internationally and demand an end to the injustice inflicted upon i t and the achievement of its freedom and independence. For his part, the head of the Commission of Prisoners' Affairs and Liberated Prisoners, Qadura Fares, said that the prisoners in the Israeli occupation prisons are exposed to a war of revenge similar to what is happening in the Gaza Strip, as they represent a source of inspiration for the Palestinian people, and they are the ones who feed the energy to continue the struggle until freedom and independence. He stressed that the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, can create the required field balance that will lead to changing the facts, and he pointed out that the state of popular anger must go beyond social media platforms, despite the importance of what is published through them to expose the crimes of the occupation. Fares called on all the Palestinian people, regardless of their background, to launch a resounding cry on August 3rd, rejecting the occupation's crimes and practices in Gaza and the prisons, as part of the national and international day whose activities were agreed upon with all factions, frameworks, activities, unions, federations and organizations in Palestine and abroad. He expressed his hope that the National Day would establish a continuous series of events that would restore the reputation of popular work, and through which a message would be sent to the Israeli occupation that the Palestinian people would confront the plan to displace them. Source: Maan News Agency