The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), the largest coalition in Palestinian society that leads the global BDS movement, joins the call for global mobilization on 3 August for Gaza and Palestinian prisoners.
The BNC condemns the complicity of silence surrounding Israel's criminal policy of mass arrests, unprecedented levels of torture, dehumanization and wanton killing of Palestinian prisoners, including political prisoners, in its dungeons and detention centers located across historic Palestine. This policy is an integral component of Israel’s genocidal war on the Indigenous Palestinian people. We urge supporters to answer the call from civil society and prisoners' rights organizations in Palestine for mass mobilization on 3 August to free all Palestinian prisoners and end complicity in Israel’s Gaza genocide.
For almost 10 months now, 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza have been enduring and resisting an ongoing live-streamed Israeli genocide, armed, funded and enabled by the colonial West, led by the US. Palestinians everywhere are facing and resisting an ongoing Nakba. Since the beginning of Israel’s genocide, unknown thousands of Palestinians have been rounded up, detained, stripped and taken to numerous locations. Across the West Bank, Israel has embarked on a campaign of arbitrary mass arrest and systemic torture. At least 9,845 Palestinians have been detained from the occupied West Bank alone since 7 October 2023.
From across the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, Israel has held Palestinian prisoners captive in squalid conditions, starving, beating, torturing, sexually abusing, drugging, and - in many cases - brutally killing them.
A report from War on Want published on 25 July reveals that 54 Palestinian prisoners have been tortured to death by Israeli forces since 7 October. Lawyers visiting Palestinian prisoners have said that the situation in Israeli detention and torture centers “is more horrific than anything we’ve heard about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.”
Yet, the mainstream Western media is almost completely silent, affirming its complicity in not just erasing the plight of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners, hostages and disappeared, but also whitewashing and enabling Israel’s livestreamed genocide. We must challenge this blatant bias, racism, and hypocrisy.
From the river to the sea, Palestinian prisoners will be free!
In response to Israel’s ongoing genocide and brutal repression, torture and murder of Palestinian prisoners, the BDS movement calls on supporters and partners worldwide to mobilize on 3 August through:
Demonstrations and peaceful occupations or other forms of creative and strategic disruption targeting complicit governments, corporations and institutions (including media outlets)
Escalation of all BDS campaigns against Israel, and in particular the #BoycottHP and #NoTechForApartheid campaigns, due to the direct complicity of HPE, Google and Amazon in Israel’s crimes against our prisoners and hostages.
Lobbying your government and parliament to impose targeted sanctions on Israel, including a comprehensive security and #MilitaryEmbargo, as legally required following the ICJ determination of Israel’s commission of a plausible genocide and its more recent condemnation of Israel’s entire occupation as illegal.
Notes:
HP Enterprise (HPE) continues to provide servers, data storage and data security services for Israel's prisons, where Palestinian political prisoners and child prisoners are held hostage in inhumane conditions and are often tortured. In April 2024, for instance, amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, Hewlett Packard Israel was contracted by the Israel Prison Service (IPS) to be the sole supplier providing HPE equipment maintenance for approx. $97,650 for one year.
Tech corporations like Google and Amazon are directly complicit in Israel’s widespread and systematic arrest and torture of Palestinians. According to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), Project Nimbus serves “all branches and units of the Israeli government,” including its military. Google and Amazon are, therefore, directly complicit in Israel’s prison system, aiding Israel’s mass arrest, torture and, in some cases, murder of Palestinian prisoners and hostages. Project Nimbus also provides the cloud platform for Israel’s AI-powered, live-streamed genocide.
On 19 July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared Israel guilty of apartheid and its military occupation illegal. The World Court ordered Israel to completely end its military occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, evacuate all settlers and let the Palestinian refugees return to their homes. The ICJ ruling today affirms beyond doubt the legal obligation for all States to end complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation and gross violations of human rights and to act to ensure respect for international law. This demands imposing immediate targeted sanctions on Israel, starting with a comprehensive military embargo.