The Anawanti network stand with Palestine
The Anawanti network subscribes to this communiqué from our colleagues from the Union of the Palestinian Women’s Committees.
In light of the genocide carried out by the Zionist occupation against our people in the Gaza Strip and the global preoccupation with solidarity with the criminal, we affirm our historical right to struggle for freedom, justice, and self-determination, against all forms of persecution we have endured for 75 years. Since 1948, Israel forcibly displaced more than 800,000 Palestinians from their lands and carried out the worst types of massacres, resulting in the destruction of 531 Palestinian villages. The occupation encompassed 78% of Palestine’s land area, leading to the establishment of the Zionist state after the displacement of more than 85% of its population.
The surviving population became refugees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and neighboring Arab countries. Israeli occupation forces occupied the remaining Palestinian lands after the 1967 war. Since then, the residents of the Gaza Strip have endured inhumane conditions due to the siege imposed by the Israeli occupation since This siege has led to sanctions affecting the basic rights of the population, imposing severe restrictions on the entry of medicines, goods, fuel, the movement of individuals, access to natural resources, water, and fisheries.
Throughout this period, Israel has consistently tried to establish a policy of isolating the Gaza Strip from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories. Furthermore, during the years of the siege, Israel launched four devastating wars on the Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians, the destruction of tens of thousands of homes and civilian facilities, and widespread damage to infrastructure.
This brutal occupation persists in committing the most egregious injustices against our people. Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli occupation has continued to target the civilian population. By the nineteenth day of the war, the toll of the occupation’s crimes had reached at least 6055 Palestinian martyrs, 65% of which were children and women, and more than 16,000 wounded. It has destroyed homes along with their residents and targeted hospitals and ambulance crews. The number of displaced people exceeded one million, four hundred thousand, living in inhumane conditions without access to water, electricity, or food, merely awaiting their fate.
Not only that, but the occupation forces are also bombing schools and hospitals where families have sought shelter after their homes were bombed. More than 55 families, including around 1000 citizens, have been completely removed from the civil registry due to the massacres in several cities and camps in the Gaza Strip. The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is distressing and horrifying. Wounded women search among the rubble for their children, and hundreds of children have been rescued from under the debris without anyone knowing their identity or who their parents were. This is because all the family members died, leaving the child alone. One of the most horrific actions of the occupation forces was ordering civilians to evacuate their homes in preparation for bombing, and then bombing them while they were displaced and seeking safety.
The Israeli Occupation is attempting also to isolate the West Bank from the rest of the occupied territories of Palestine. These policies are designed to exert pressure on the population and expel them from their lands. Since October 7th, the occupation forces have arrested 930 Palestinians from the West Bank, bringing the total number of arrests since the beginning of 2023 to over 6,600 cases. The Israeli occupation forces have also murdered more than 100 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7th.
While we believe in our inalienable right to freedom, justice, and struggle, we affirm that resistance is a natural right for a people under the occupation authority. We call on free peoples to stand alongside our people to stop the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the occupation authorities and its forces against our steadfast Palestinian people.
ANAWANTI is an international network of feminist organisations for a life free of violence made up of organisations and women from El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Morocco, Palestine and Catalonia. We are articulated from the recognition of diverse feminisms and from an intersectional perspective that allows us to support each other in the face of the multiple oppressions that affect us, including colonialism and racism.
SUDS – Spain
SURT Foundation – Spain
Centro de Derechos de Mujeres (CDM) – Honduras
Organización Salvadoreña de Mujeres por la Paz (ORMUSA) – El Salvador
Actoras de Cambio – Guatemala
Association Marocaine pour les Droits des Femmes (AMDF) – Morocco
Mains Solidaires – Morocco
Union of Palestinian Women Commitees (UPWC) – Palestine