Over one month after the launch of the latest Israeli onslaught on the 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza, and with mounting evidence of Israeli violations of international law, war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, we, the Executive Committee of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), Local 3903, re-affirm our solidarity with the occupied Palestinian people.
Israel’s military attacks during the latest onslaught have been utterly unjustified. In just over one month, the preliminary estimates reveal that Israel has killed over 1,900 Palestinians, including 1,400 civilians and 450 children. In addition, 2,979 children, 1,903 women and 356 elderly Palestinians have thus far been injured. These devastating results of the Israeli military attacks do not include the hundreds of thousands of civilians that have been displaced and tens of thousands whose homes have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair. [For sources and more information, please see this report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.]
Due to the barrage of genocidal attacks of the Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, we call:
- for a ceasefire with Israel only if conditioned on an end to the blockade of Gaza and the restoration of basic freedoms, including movement, unlimited import and export of supplies and goods, and unrestricted use of the Gaza seaport – all of which have been denied to the people of Gaza for over seven years; and
- on the Canadian government to divest fully from Israel given its ongoing criminal military actions in Gaza.
We also commend and support the statement by Jewish survivors and descendants of survivors of Nazi genocide in “unequivocally condemn[ing] the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and the ongoing occupation and colonization of historic Palestine.”
We believe that it is time for the Palestinians of Gaza to be accorded the human rights they deserve, and we call on the Canadian Labour Congress, CUPE National and CUPE Ontario to echo our statement of solidarity.
In solidarity,
Executive Committee of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 3903