The Arab-Israeli war of 1967, which broke out 38 years ago, represented a continuation of Israeli territorial expansion as well as a completely new stage of Israeli military superiority. In less than a week, Israel expanded its territory fourfold. Exactly 19 years after the Palestinian and Arab tragedy (Al Nakba) of 1948 and the formation of the Jewish state, the Arab world was dealt another heavy blow. In a matter of days , some say even hours, the tripartite military alliance between the United Arab Republic (Egypt), the Syrian Arab Republic and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, was defeated in a most embarrassing manner. At the time President Nasser of Egypt deemed the defeat of 1967 a mere ‘setback,’ which he considered reversible. However, no one in 1967 and in the years that followed could have forecast that the Palestinian people in the year 2005 would still be living under such cruel, gruesome and inhumane conditions, all of which are the result of the prolonged occupation that started in 1967.

Immediately after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, the United Nations Security Council, the main executive organ of the UN, convened an emergency session. France drafted a resolution which was accepted unanimously by the Council members, Resolution 242. In short, the resolution calls for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict.". The UN repeated its call on Israel to withdraw forces from occupied lands in 1973 by issuing Security Council Resolution 338. To date Israel remains in breach of resolutions 181 (partition of Palestine), 194 (right of return of Palestinian refugees), 242 and 338.

38 years after the Six Day War, the West Bank and Gaza are still under occupation, and what an occupation it is! Today the Occupied Palestinian Territories remain in a state of humanitarian catastrophe. The military occupation of Palestinian land and people is one of the most unjust practices of our time. Within the time-frame of 38 years, the state of Israel has been able to accumulate and compile a seemingly endless list of one of the worst human rights records mankind has ever witnessed. A few examples of this are the devastating ‘Apartheid Wall,’ the continued expansion and creation of illegal settlements, the continued policy of targeted, as well as ad hoc killings, home demolitions at frightening pace, the judaization of east Jerusalem, continued curfews forcefully imposed on Palestinian towns and villages.

In a sense the 1967 war was a catalyst that brought about a major change in Arab foreign policy with concerns to dealing with Israel. Around the time of the Madrid conference in 1991, the Arab states collectively chose to pursue a policy of making peace with Israel rather than engaging in warfare. The latest attempt at trying to make peace with Israel was presented at the Arab league Summit in Beirut in 2002, by the Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. His proposal called for full Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab lands in return for full normalization of relations with all Arab states. This brings us to Israel: the then and current Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, reciprocated the Arab peace proposal by ordering his troops to carry out the bloody incursion of Jenin, in which at least 62 Palestinians were killed, most of them innocent civilians.

Military occupations do not last for ever, and this one, too, must come to an end; the earlier, the better. Military occupations are extremely costly affairs, both in terms of human lives and human/economic development. This one has reached absurd proportions. Israel has now had over five decades to implement various Security Council Resolutions. This grace period must be declared “over”. Israel’s alleged quest for peace and security must be questioned more resolutely and consequently by the international community. It is time for the world, including the Israeli public, to say “enough,” or better yet, “more than enough”. It is time to set the Palestinians free, for they have done nothing to deserve what is being done to them.

The formula for a just and lasting peace has not changed. It is still negotiations on the basis of Resolutions 242, 338, and the subsequently added land-for-peace formula.

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.