End the Gaza War Crimes - sign petition

This letter was sent to Gordon Brown-Prime Minister, David Miliband and Bill Rammell from the Foreign Commonwealth Office. If you wish to add your names for a follow up petition use this link:

http://apjp.org/email-us/

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From: Architects & Planners for Justice in Palestine.

30 December 2008

Rt Hn David Miliband MP
Secretary of State
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London SW1

Dear Mr. Miliband

RE: End the War Crimes on Gaza

We are writing to you to urge effective international intervention on Israel to immediately cease its siege and disproportionate Guernica style attacks on Gaza. The UN Security Council have called for an end to the fighting where 360 people including many civilian men, women and children have been killed and over 1400 injured in Gaza (with four Israelis killed by Qassem responses) in the last four days. The huge casualty toll during the rush hour, intended to inflict maximum casualties, now includes a terribly damaging destruction of civilian infrastructure, including all police stations, security compounds, and government buildings. Gaza’s port, schools, residential buildings, universities, factories, mosques and hospitals were also hit by the massive tonnage of the bombing. Israeli Brigadier General Dan Harel said, “After this operation there will not be a single Hamas building left standing, and we plan to change the rule of the game.” This is basically a one-sided war on a defenceless population, with Israel’s underlying intention to totally destroy Palestinian civil society, as evident over 40 years of brutal occupation.

The wilful targeting of the civilian police forces is a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention under Article 147 and therefore, a War Crime. The Geneva Convention bans military action that harms civilians, in this case an inevitability since the infrastructure was attacked by carpet bombing in the heart of dense city centres, using deadly F16s, and heavy war machinery against a defenceless population crippled by a catastrophic three year siege, in which hundreds have already died. On day four now, Ehud Olmert the Israeli PM has said, “This is only the beginning”.

It was Israel who violated the six-month ceasefire in Gaza and the West Bank, carrying out an average of 33 incursions, 42 arrests or detentions adding to a total of 22 killings of militants since the ceasefire began. These killings are part of Israel’s ongoing campaign of collective punishment against the 1.5 million residents of the Gaza Strip, which Israel has put under siege since June 2007. The rockets from Gaza did indeed stop, but Israel did not keep to its part of the agreement to relieve the blockade – propelling Gaza into a humanitarian crisis as underlined by all UN and human rights observers and agencies working in Gaza. The international community put no effective pressure on Israel to end this crisis or the assassinations.

The media and the Quartet swamped by a massive PR machinery, disinformation and blatant lies, have overlooked Israel's historic tactic of provoking the Palestinians with assassinations and killings, right through declared ceasefires, and when there is a response, blaming the escalation on the victims of the Occupation, who are acting in justified self-defence as an occupied people, under international law.

Israel now intends to launch a massive ground attack, (no doubt with US tacit approval). All international efforts must be made to stop these deadly attacks on Gaza, to implement international law, under Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prosecute those responsible for grave breaches of the Convention. EU member states should take immediate restrictive measures and sanctions, due to Israel’s breaches of humanitarian law and stop upgrade privileges. All Palestinians should be brought into proper peace negotiations including the democratically elected Hamas government.

Unless Israel ends its strangulating grip on the West Bank and Gaza, its relentless illegal settlement expansion and land expropriation that destroys any possibility of a viable two state solution, its illegal apartheid wall, and its violent sieges, and relentless state terror on the imprisoned Palestinian people, there will be no peace in the Middle East.

Yours sincerely



Abe Hayeem, Chair APJP & the following signatories:

Charles Jencks,
Ian Martin
Zahira Zamuch
Fahmi Salameh, Ramallah/Barcelona
Martin O'Shea
Uri Davis , Israel
Malkit Shoshan (FAST)Amsterdam
Kelvin Bland
Steve Kessel
Karin Pally (LA)
Martin White
Joanna Heilig-Sweden
Anil Korotane (FAST)
Stephen Kerpen (Oregon)
Malcolm Hecks
Dena Qaddumi
John Murray
Gail Waldman
John Lynes
David Berridge
Ian Macdonald
Wade Sowman (New Zealand)
Steve Fox
Muhammad Nusrat Alam Khan
Cem Ertur
Aun Qurashi
Mariah Jones
Ahmad Barclay
Judy Price
Faisal Khan
Isabel Camacho (Spain)
Mehmooda Khan
Safa Mahmoud
Asif Khan
John Dinnen
Saleha Sayeed
Nurhan Abujidi
Laiba Khan
Hana Khan
Saleha Sayeed
Nazish Khan

Beatriz Maturana, Architects for Peace, Australia

Hans Haenlein

Cezary Bednarski

John Hodge

Walter Hain

Kamila Zahno

Agnieszka Arevall

Brad Hooper, Architects for Peace, Australia

Yasir Ronny

Paul Barham