The PAX online exhibition ‘Palestine Resilience’ is nominated as one of five nominees for the Hoogvlieger Award 2021, a Dutch prize for the best communication activity of a Dutch development organization. Since 2015, the prize is awarded yearly. On July 2 2021, the winners of this year will be announced.
PAX and 25 other leading organizations working on improving the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict (PoC) have called for the United Nations (UN), Member States, and armed actors to take urgent action in a joint statement published ahead of the annual Security Council (UNSC) open debate on PoC on 25 May.
It is six years ago to the day, on 3 June, that a Dutch F-16 carried out an airstrike on an IS ammunition factory in the Iraqi town of Hawija. Over 18,000 kilograms of munition detonated, resulting in over 70 civilian casualties, hundreds more injured and over 400 houses destroyed. The Dutch participation in the war against IS was in the Netherlands well known. Yet, the consequences thereof remained in this case a secret for over four years. It was not until 2019 that the airstrike on Hawija and Dutch responsibility was brought to light by a joint investigation of NRC and NOS.
Almost a year after the deadly explosion in Beirut, PAX and it’s Lebanese partner-organisation MAAN present the new book: ‘Beirut 6:07, Alive Ashes’, an impressive collection of the stories of 214 victims who brutally lost their lives in the explosion that shook Beirut on the afternoon of August 4, 2020, at 6:07 PM.
PAX welcomes the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. It is important that the escalation of violence in which more than 200 civilians, including more than 60 children, lost their lives has ended for now. Recent weeks have once again shown how important it is that warring parties fulfill their obligations under international humanitarian law. Citizens and civil infrastructure should never be targets.
Palestinians do not blame Hamas for provoking violence from Israel with its rockets. That is what Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant wrote in a recent article featuring Palestinian political scientist Abu Saad. However, the very opposite is true. Many peaceful Palestinian activists are angry that Hamas are the “useful idiots” that play into the hands of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
The escalation of protest against evictions of Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah into a full out campaign of rocket fire and airstrikes has as of May 17 resulted in over 200 people killed in Gaza and Israel, over 1,200 wounded and over 40,000 displaced in Gaza alone. Beyond these direct impacts, the indirect and reverberating impacts on civilians’ lives will have longer-term implications from the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, foreboding an increased and extended humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
The fact that Palestinian freedoms are under threat has become painfully clear this week. This also applies to the freedom on social media. Online censorship is being used as a weapon around the protests against the forced displacement of Palestinian families in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah. As said by PAX partner Nadim Nashif of the Palestinian digital rights organization 7amleh. Nashif: “As a result of the censorship of social media messages and intimidation of peaceful activists the freedom of expression of Palestinians is further under attack.”
Over the past two weeks, indiscriminate and excessive police violence against largely peaceful protests in Colombia, has led to dozens of civilian deaths, arbitrary arrests and disappearances.
In the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem, Palestinian families are threatened with forced displacement from their homes. They must make way for Israeli settlers. Protests against this are brutally suppressed by the Israeli police. PAX is calling on the Dutch government to hold the Israeli authorities accountable for these violations of international law. Concrete measures must be taken. The time for expressing concern is over; action is needed to stop the displacements.
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