Public Commemoration of Gaza Massacre
gathering to commemorate the deaths brought by Israel’s assault on the Gaza strip
- Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
13h00 Phillips Square
metro McGill
corner Ste. Catherine and Union
Montreal, Quebec
December 27th, 2008, the Israeli Defense Forces initiated a 22-day assault, dubbed Operation Cast Lead, against the population of the Gaza Strip. The operation, involving massive aerial bombardments and a devastating ground invasion, killed a total of 1417 Palestinians according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, the vast majority of which were civilians. Of these, 313 children and 116 women were killed.
The civilians, trapped within the tiny coastal territory by a blockade of its border crossings, lacked the ability to escape the violent bombardment. According to the U.N. commissioned Goldstone Report, the Israeli attack on the civilian population of Gaza amounted to a “grave breach” of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
In addition, the Goldstone reports states that the aim of the assault was to “humiliate and terrorize a civilian population, radically diminish its local economic capacity both to work and to provide for itself, and to force upon it an ever increasing sense of dependency and vulnerability”.
The Israeli attack on Gaza sparked worldwide condemnation. In Montreal, more than ten thousand people converged downtown to protest against the actions of the Israeli government and to show solidarity with the Palestinian people, the largest Palestinian solidarity protests in Canadian history.
The effects on the Palestinian people and territory have been devastating. More than three thousand homes were destroyed and some 20 thousand damaged. The Gazan economy, at that time already crippled by an 18 month land and sea blockade, has been left in ruins. Blocking construction materials and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, Israel prevents the population from rebuilding their shattered lives.
Israel’s military attack on Gaza last winter marked a turning point in the growing global Palestinian solidarity movement, sparking a major shift of support towards the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against the Israeli system of apartheid.
Join us, Tadamon! Montreal and SPHR Concordia, January 3rd, 2009 at Phillips Square at 1 p.m. at a vigil in commemoration of the lives lost in Palestine this time last year.
information
tel: 514 664 1036
email: info(at)tadamon.ca
