What we can do:
Write your MP immediately and ask them to sign this Early Day Motion on Gaza.
You can write to your MP quickly and easily through this website.
Below. is a template email you can use, if it helps.
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Dear TKTK,
I am writing to request that you add your name to Richard Burden MP’s Early Day Motion on Gaza: https://www.parliament.uk/edm/2017-19/1163
For several weeks, thousands of Palestinians have engaged in mass — and overwhelmingly nonviolent — protests in Gaza.
The Government of Israel has responded with heavy repression: as of 20 April 2018, 32 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces in the course of the demonstrations, including four children, while more than 4,900 Palestinians had been injured.[1]
Medecins Sans Frontieres doctors have reported ‘receiving patients with devastating injuries of an unusual severity. . . the injuries include an extreme level of destruction to bones and soft tissue, and large exit wounds that can be the size of a fist’.[2]
Not a single Israeli casualty has been reported.
The mass nonviolent demonstrations would stop if Israel’s illegal and immoral siege of Gaza were lifted.
The siege has brought Gaza to the brink of collapse. Indeed ,the UN has warned that Gaza might become literally ‘unliveable’ by 2020.[3]
Every major international human rights organisation has condemned Israel’s blockade of Gaza as ‘collective punishment’ (International Committee of the Red Cross) imposed ‘in flagrant violation of international law’ (Amnesty International).[4]
An official UN inquiry authored by an American judge called for the siege to be lifted ‘immediately and unconditionally’, while the European Parliament this week overwhelmingly demanded ‘an immediate and unconditional end of the blockade and closure of the Gaza Strip’.[5]
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has condemned Israel’s firing of ‘live ammunition into crowds of unarmed civilians’ as ‘illegal and inhumane’, called for ‘an independent international inquiry’ and urged a ‘review’ of arms sales to Israel.[6]
Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders has condemned the ‘killing of Palestinian demonstrators by Israeli forces’ and urged an end to the ‘inhumane blockade of Gaza’.[7]
Palestinians are always being urged to forsake armed struggle for nonviolent resistance.
Today, in Gaza, they have done so — and they are being mown down.
The very least we can do is to press for an independent investigation and exert meaningful pressure on Israel to abide by international humanitarian law.
Please sign the Early Day Motion.
Yours sincerely,
TKTK
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[1] Gaza Ministry of Health figures, cited by the United Nations, https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/ocha-flash-upda te-four-palestinians-killed-and-hundreds
[2] Medecins Sans Frontieres (19 April 2018), http://www.msf.org/en/article/palestine-msf-teams-gaza-observe-unusually-se vere-and-devastating-gunshot-injuries
[3] UN Country Team in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, ‘Gaza Ten Years Later’ (July 2017), p. 3, https://unsco.unmissions.org/sites/default/files/gaza_10_years_later_-_11_j uly_2017.pdf
[4] International Committee of the Red Cross, ‘Gaza Closure: Not Another Year!’ (14 June 2010), https://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/update/palestine-update-140610 .htm; Amnesty International, ‘Suffocating Gaza – the Israeli blockade’s effects on Palestinians’ (1 June 2010), https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2010/06/suffocating-gaza-israeli-blo ckades-effects-palestinians/
[5] UN Human Rights Council, ‘Inquiry into the 2014 Gaza Conflict’ (2015), para. 681(d); http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fTEXT% 2bMOTION%2bP8-RC-2018-0191%2b0%2bDOC%2bXML%2bV0%2f%2fEN&language=EN
[6] https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10156349671608872&id=3302 50343871
[7] http://thehill.com/policy/international/381125-sanders-condemns-killing-of- palestinian-protesters; https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/bernie-sanders-slams-netanyahu-says-israel- overreacted-in-gaza-1.6009159
Jamie Stern-Weiner 