Recently, the Jerusalem Municipality began measures to demolish around 88 buildings, which are homes to more than 1,000 Palestinians, in the Silwan neighborhood of east Jerusalem. If the plan is followed through, it will be one of Israel’s largest home demolition acts in east Jerusalem since 1967. Uri Shetrit, the city engineer, claims the illegality of the buildings’ construction and the aim to restore the area to an historical and religious landscape as justification for the demolition plan. However, looking at the history of events that have surrounded this area, it is clear that this plan is just another attempt by Israel to annex more of Jerusalem, not only ignoring international law and peace agreements but also weakening any future Palestinian claims to the city that they see as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

The Silwan neighborhood is located below the Old City with some of the earliest homes dating from the 1940s and 1950s, prior to the establishment of the state of Israel and the illegal occupation of lands seized in the 1967 War. Even some of the recent homes were built on private land belonging to Silwan villagers. Yet, Shetrit cites a 1977 Israeli plan, which designated the area open public territory, most likely disregarding Palestinians’ historic rights and ownership to the property, and making any construction illegal. In regards to the homes built before 1967, Sherit says he does not want to demolish them, but intends to circumvent the statute of limitations, which forbids the razing of homes built more than seven years ago, even those without permits, by evacuating and barring residents from their homes in hopes of making it easier to destroy them in the future.

If vague, discriminatory and inconsistent legal actions are not enough to justify Israel’s annexation plan, Sherit further excuses the home demolitions based on Jewish religious foundations. He says he wants to “restore the area to its landscape of yore,” because the neighborhood is the location of “the beginnings of Jerusalem … [and] constitutes an entire archaeological entity in which all of the sites are interconnected.” Sherit’s ultimate plan is to turn the area into a national park, which would conveniently clear the area of all Palestinian residents adjacent to the Old City, expanding and connecting the Jewish blocs surrounding the district.

Throughout its occupation, Israel has consistently used the excuse that Arabs “build without permits” and “steal state land” to destroy Palestinian homes, which is an unfounded, bogus and blantantly discriminatory policy. But the policy goes further. Although on paper Israel’s land and property strategies are disguised as land designated as “open space” or “future green space,” the reality is that Palestinians, both citizens of Israel and those in the Occupied Territories, are rarely granted building permits based on the fact that they are Palestinian. Thus, Israel claims more land for itself and fosters its policy of quiet transfer, or annexation.

Also, while the legality of construction tactic is new, these annexation attempts in the Silwan neighborhood are not. For many years now, Israelis, particularly ultra-Orthodox Jews, have been trying to settle the area in some way or another, even through violent means. These groups have had the backing of hardline governments and foreign investors who have bought property in east Jerusalem in order to strengthen Israel’s hold on the area. And despite the status of Jerusalem as a sensitive issue in peace negotiations, Israel has consistently said it will never relinquish land it illegally occupies since the 1967 War.

Whether done quietly, as in the Silwan neighborhood, or blatantly, as in the construction of 3,500 housing units in the illegal settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, Israel defiantly disregards international law concerning its land rights and statehood as well as its peace negotiations with the Palestinians. The world stood by and watched similar tragedies take place in 1948 and 1967; is it not about time for the international community to step in and force Israel to comply with world agreements and ensure basic human rights and freedom for the Palestinian people?

This is an urgent and repeated appeal to the world to immediately intervene, in light of the recent stories of rape and sexual violence against Palestinian women by Israeli occupation forces during Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Palestinian women are being displaced, tortured, killed and forcibly disappeared, while the world sits idle. Silence and inaction in the wake of these horrifying crimes amount to complicity.

Over the past few days, more horrifying testimonies and stories have emerged from Gaza of sadistic acts by Israeli soldiers, including torture, rape, and mass field executions at hospitals where civilians are seeking shelter, medical treatment and refuge.

Palestinian civil society and UN experts have sounded the alarm multiple times and reported cases of rape and sexual violence before and during this genocide. These reports continue to be deliberately and inexcusably ignored, including by prominent and otherwise vocal feminist organizations and figures.

The deafening silence of “Western” feminists and mainstream media in particular is deliberate and inexcusable, as opposed to their earlier outrage over Israeli allegations and misinformation, used to justify this genocide.

Many Palestinian women and girls who are survivors of rape and sexual violence are hesitant to come forward, due to the social stigma in a conservative society and the belief that Israel will not be held accountable for such crimes.

Israel is committing the most horrific war crimes, and weaponizing rape and sexual violence against Palestinians as part of its genocide in Gaza and assault on the Palestinian people as a whole, throughout all of Palestine. This is the result of decades of impunity, preferential treatment and lack of international accountability by the international community. Words are not enough to describe or stop this horror; action is needed.

We conclude this SOS appeal by reminding our sisters and allies around the world that our rights, our dignity, and our humanity are indivisible. Forsaking Palestinian victims now for political convenience would be an unforgivable betrayal to decades of sacrifice and feminist struggle.

We call for:

• The international community must employ all available tools of international accountability, including political and economic sanctions, to bring an immediate and lasting ceasefire and provision of unconditional humanitarian aid.

• States must immediately impose an arms embargo on Israel and honor their moral and legal obligations, including those pronounced in the Genocide Convention.

• States need to investigate and prosecute Israeli soldiers with dual citizenship implicated in these atrocities.

• The Special Representative of the Secretary General on Sexual Violence in Conflict must honor her mandate and launch an immediate investigation into the ongoing atrocities.

• Feminists around the world must sound the alarm globally on the unspeakable human rights violations taking place in Gaza, namely the sexual abuse and rape of Palestinian women and girls.

• Journalists and media outlets must do their due diligence in reporting on these stories through fair and unbiased coverage.

Signatories:

1. American Federation of Ramallah Palestine
2. Association of women’s Action
3. AWMR Italia - Donne della Regione Mediterranea
4. Bisan Center for Research and Development
5. Community Development and Media Center
6. Cultura è libertà una campagna per la Palestina
7. Enjaz Foundation for development
8. Filastiniyat
9. Human Rights and Democracy Media Center SHAMS
10. Institute of Women's Studies
11. Not to forget women society
12. Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA)
13. Palestinian Women's Action committee
14. Rete Femminista Marche Molto+di194
15. Rural Women Development Society
16. Sinal do Vale
17. Singola
18. Teaching Palestine: Pedagogical Praxis and the Indivisibility of Justice
19. The center for defense of liberties and civil rights “Hurryyat”
20. The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy - MIFTAH
21. The Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development-PWWSD
22. The Regional Coalition for Women Human Rights Defenders in Southwest Asia and North Africa (WHRDMENA)
23. Union of Palestinian Women Committees
24. Wattan media network
25. Women Media and Development
26. Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
27. رابطة المرأة العراقية
28. شبكة المستقبل الديمقراطية العراقية

We, at the Palestinian NGO Forum to Combat Violence against Women and all Arab women’s and rights organizations raise our voices loud and clear on the eve of March 8, to say: “Stop the onslaught and crimes against women and children in Gaza. Stop the crime of genocide, the crime of starvation and forced displacement”. So far, this aggression has resulted in the killing of 31,000 Palestinians, over 70% of whom are women and children. Two women are killed every hour , in addition to many others still under the rubble. There are women whose fate is unknown, after being taken away by occupation forces.

Who will restore normalcy for us Palestinian women after these atrocities?

We have always held activities on March 8. We had a long list of rights we demanded and others we were able to achieve. However today, as the women of Gaza are being annihilated, we stand the length and breadth of our homeland and our Arab nations, angry, in a state of revolution and in deep mourning. Our demand today is to halt the genocide in the Gaza Strip and to halt the reproductive genocide against our women. We declare this day the day of Palestinian women, as they stand hungry in long queues, waiting for insufficient aid, terrified of the skies above them, filled with missiles of death. This is for the women whose bodies are exhausted, in camps for the displaced and in shelter centers, for those raped in prison and for their naked bodies stripped at checkpoints. It is for the menstruating women who cannot find sanitary products and for those with high-risk pregnancies who are starving, displaced and bombed. It is for the women whose wombs may be removed for the simplest of medical complications and those whose privacy has been violated because of overcrowded tents and displacement. It is for the mothers who could die at any moment and for all women whose Palestinianism has crucified humanity at the altar, amid deafening Arab silence, boundless American support and the complicity of several European countries.

Nevertheless, we continue to appreciate all forms of Arab and international support and solidarity with the Palestinian cause, which shows respect for our people’s dignity. Widening this solidarity will further reaffirm the justness of our cause. Hence, we await more action and movements in solidarity of our right to demand an immediate end to the genocide in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem, to forge our way forward towards freedom, self-determination and the establishment of an independent and fully-sovereign Palestinian state.

Today, we Palestinian and Arab women, reaffirm the following on March 8 and every day forward:

- To put pressure on Israel to immediately halt its aggression and to hold its leaders accountable for their crimes in violation of international law, the Fourth Geneva Convention and all international laws and treaties, towards delegitimizing this occupying entity.

- To open the Rafah Crossing and all crossings to allow aid in and the wounded out for treatment

- To dismantle the land corridor linking Israel with some Arab countries supplying it with goods

Long Live Palestinian Women, who stand steadfast and resistant in the face of the Zionist aggression We speak in the voices of Gaza’s women and say:

Halt the genocide…halt the onslaught immediately!

In a recent statement, nearly five months into the Israeli genocide in Gaza, several UN experts confirmed the various reports and testimonies that have been coming from Palestinian women and human rights organizations for months now. In Gaza, women have been kidnapped and forcibly disappeared and placed in dire conditions in undisclosed locations. In the occupied West Bank, released prisoners testified on the horrific realities inside Israeli prisons and the widespread torture and ill-treatment where sexual violence is used as a weapon employed against both women and men. The targeting of women and girls with such atrocious crimes is targeting the most vulnerable, in an attempt to break and degrade the society as a whole.

The inaction and failure of the international community to stop Israeli crimes, namely the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and other heinous crimes all across Palestine for decades now has emboldened Israel to act with impunity. This allows Israel to continue committing horrific crimes against Palestinian women and girls, namely rape and other forms of sexual violence and torture.

The silence of “Western” feminists has also been appalling, given their earlier outrage about unsubstantiated Israeli allegations which were used to justify and commit the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

First and foremost, we demand an immediate ceasefire and the unconditional provision of humanitarian aid. In order to put an end to such heinous crimes and impunity, we reiterate the need for an independent international investigation into all crimes, especially sexual violence, followed by international accountability for the perpetrators.