End Israel’s siege of the Gaza Strip
Photo: A Palestinian child standing in the rubble of a family home in Gaza, during a vigil, 2021. Credit: Active Stills
For the past 15 years, over 2 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip have been cut off from the rest of Palestine and the outside world. Since 2007, Israel has imposed an illegal land, air and sea blockade — effectively turning the Gaza Strip into the world’s largest open-air prison by preventing the free movement of people and goods.
Israel’s siege is a form of unlawful collective punishment it imposes on the Palestinian people, resulting in an intentional, permanent humanitarian crisis. Palestinians face rampant food, water and power shortages. The Gaza Strip’s economy, industry, infrastructure, and health and education services have all been decimated. Today, over 60% of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are kept in poverty, whilst half face unemployment.
Israel’s periodic, brutal military assaults on the Gaza Strip compound this violence, and the effects of its blockade for the Palestinians living there. Since the start of the blockade, Israel has subjected the Gaza Strip to four major military assaults, most recently in May 2021. Israel’s attacks have killed thousands of Palestinians and devastated the Gaza Strip’s fragile, crumbling infrastructure.
In 2018 to 2019, Palestinians took part in weekly Great March of Return protests in the Gaza Strip, demanding an end to Israel’s blockade and their right to return to their homes in historic Palestine — a right enshrined in international law. Israel responded with lethal violence, killing over 210 unarmed Palestinian protesters and wounding over 36,000.
Israel’s crimes toward the Palestinian people are made possible by international complicity, including from the UK. Despite Israel’s repeated violations of international law and massacres of unarmed civilians, the UK continues to sell weapons and military equipment to Israel.
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to defy occupation, and resist Israel’s attempts to fragment the Palestinian people by isolating the Gaza Strip from the rest of Palestine. They are asking for your solidarity. Email your MP to demand the UK government takes urgent action to end Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip, and stops the UK-Israel arms trade.