Denounce the occupation's crime against the women of Hebron and demand international protection for our people.
Hundreds of female demonstrators in front of the United Nations headquarters in Gaza City denounced the escalating Israeli occupation violations against our Palestinian people, especially the crime of assaulting several women in Hebron, calling on the international community to assume its responsibilities by pressuring the Israeli occupation to stop its daily violations in the Palestinian territories and prosecute it legally and criminally before the competent international bodies.
The participants during the massive demonstration organized by the Women’s Sector in PNGOs Network called on all international, Arab, and national organizations and institutions to raise their voices, condemn and expose the Israeli crime against women in the city of Hebron, and work seriously to hold accountable and prosecute the occupation soldiers and their leaders for their heinous acts before international forums.
They demanded the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to open a serious and immediate investigation into the crimes of the occupation and to provide international protection for our Palestinian people, who are subjected to the most heinous types of crimes by the occupation soldiers and herds of settlers.
They also called on the Palestinian political leaders to work hard to end the shameful division and achieve national unity in a way that strengthens our resilience and reinforces our internal front to confront all these challenges.
During the demonstration, the participants raised Palestinian flags and banners that read, “We call on the international community to intervene urgently to stop the Israeli occupation’s violations against our Palestinian people.” “We denounce the occupation’s crime committed against the women of Hebron and demand that the occupation be held accountable.” “Enough silence regarding the occupation’s crimes and ongoing violations.” “Yes, to end the division in the face of the occupation and its violations.”
They chanted slogans demanding international protection, rejecting the occupation’s violations, and affirming their adherence to the rights of our people to freedom, ending the occupation, and establishing an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
The participants in the demonstration observed a minute of silence for the earthquake victims in brotherly Morocco, expressing their solidarity with the women and people of Morocco in light of the difficult circumstances they are going through as a result of the repercussions of the earthquake.
During the sit-in, Maryam Zaqout, coordinator of the Women's Sector at PNGO, read the speech of the Sector, in which she stated, "We consider what happened in Hebron a serious crime and a violation of all human norms and values, because of the encroachment on the honor and sanctities of Palestinian homes, and a clear violation by the Israeli occupation forces, represented by its male and female soldiers, for all international treaties and resolutions that the international community praises morning and evening.
Zaqout called for the necessity of working hard to hold accountable the perpetrators of this crime at the executive level, represented by male and female soldiers who committed this act without any fear or moral or legal deterrent.
She called for holding accountable the political level in the occupying state, which constitutes a cover and protection for the practices of its soldiers, by refusing to trial them and releasing the killers of children and women in the village of Burqa in Ramallah governorate, and the killers of the girl Aisha al-Rabi in Nablus in 2018, and the settlers who killed and burned the child Muhammad Abu Khudair in Jerusalem in 2014."
Zaqout explained, “This momentous event that violated the sanctity of our homes in Hebron is considered a systematic policy by the occupying state that aims to break the Palestinian will and break the system of protection in front of family members by putting fathers and sons in a position of being unable to protect their women and daughters. This is an intentional and systematic method carried out by the occupation army with the explicit support of the extremist Israeli government."
Zaqout indicated that male and female prisoners in the occupation prisons are also subjected to heinous types of violations by the occupation government, expressing the solidarity of the Women’s Sector with the mothers and families of the prisoners in the face of Ben Gvir’s decisions to restrict their visits to our prisoners in the occupation prisons.
Zaqout concluded her speech by calling on international and human rights institutions to put pressure on occupation to implement Security Council Resolution No. 1325, which explicitly calls for the protection of women, girls, and children during armed conflicts. This applies to the Palestinian case as it is still under occupation and in constant conflict with the occupation soldiers who flout all these resolutions and laws supported by the American bias and the policy of double standards towards the rights of male and female Palestinians.