The Israeli government has been vigorously intensifying its measures against the international presence in the Palestinian territories, through introducing harsher restrictive measures on the movement of the international personnel and delegates in Palestine.

The newly introduced restrictions by Israel include arbitrary arrest, interrogation, and deportation of International volunteers suspected in helping to protect the Palestinian people or in providing the Palestinian civilians with any kind of humanitarian assistance. Furthermore, harsher restrictions have been imposed by Israel, on the entrances of border crossings, as well as at the Israeli military crossings to occupied territories. Needless to say those measures are aimed at obstructing, if not halting, all international delegates monitoring the Israeli occupation’s daily humiliations and violations of human and civil rights of the Palestinian population in total contravention of the 4th Geneva Convention and International Humanitarian Law.

We in the GIPP are deeply concerned by these latest developments and would like in this context to reaffirm our position stated in our documents that explicitly declare the peaceful and nonviolent nature of GIPP in opposing the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, and thus, believing in the absolute right of the Palestinian people for international protection in compliance with the 4th Geneva Convention.

We believe that the concept & the experience of international civilian presence for the protection of the Palestinians have successfully been introduced and out-reached, for the past two years, through the performance of the GIPP where thousands of international volunteers were involved. We fully believe that the international presence continues to be extremely vital, especially at this critical time, when the government of Israel is actively pursuing vigilante violence against the Palestinian civilians.

It is clear that international presence for the protection of the Palestinian civilians is becoming an important factor in exposing the real ugly and inhuman face of the Israeli military occupation. Therefore, we at GIPP are renewing our call upon all solidarity groups to start an immediate campaign against the inhuman measures taken by the Israeli authorities in its intention to portray the humanitarian work of solidarity movements as illegal and violent. Furthermore, we call upon all solidarity groups to exert pressure on their governments, and on the grassroots level, to guarantee the right of the international peace groups & individuals to freely express their solidarity with the Palestinian people. Finally, we appeal to all of you to launch a massive campaign to stop the Israeli Government’s attempts to undermine our joint efforts in protecting the Palestinian civilians, and their suffering under the illegal Israeli military occupation. .