"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals." – Rev Dr.

A year from the start of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC), leading the global BDS movement against Israel, and social movements in Brazil launch the ‘Olympics without Apartheid’ campaign.

The immediate target of the campaign is the International Security and Defense Systems (ISDS), an Israeli company awarded a contract last October by the Rio16 Olympic Organizing Committee. The company is an integral part of the Israeli regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid against Palestinians.

International figures and Palestinian leaders of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement held a press conference in Ramallah this morning to mark the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the Palestinian civil society-led, global BDS movement.

Local and international journalists heard from a range of figures including Chief Mandla Mandela, member (ANC) of the South African Parliament and grandson to the late leader Nelson Mandela, Marcel Khalife, prominent Lebanese musician and UNESCO Artist for Peace, and Rebecca Vilkomerson, director of the US-based Jewish Voice for Peace.

One year since Israel’s Gaza massacre and ten years since the launch of the BDS movement: building the boycott is more important than ever

A statement from the Palestinian BDS National Committee

One year ago today, Israel launched a brutal military attack on the Palestinian population of the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip. More than 2,200 Palestinians were killed, including 551 children, and more than 10,000 people were seriously injured and hundreds of thousands were made homeless, forcibly displaced and trapped inside Gaza.

As Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, the catastrophe in 1948 when more than 700,000 indigenous Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homes by Zionist militias and later the State of Israel, life in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip is reaching a fatal tipping point, as the UN has warned.

Close to 2 million Palestinians are incarcerated by Israel in a small space condemned to a life of misery, where not even water, the source of life, is fit for human consumption.

-- Marinah had planned to participate in the Méditerranée Festival in Ashdod the upcoming 11th June and also at the World Music Festival of Tel Aviv

-- The Ashdod Festival has broad institutional support and is financed by companies which are directly linked to the violation of Palestinian

In the first of a new series of regular round-ups from the Palestinian BDS National Committee, we bring you a summary of some of the incredible recent developments from across the global BDS movement.

Take action: Tell Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil to cancel their Israel concert

Sign the petition here: goo.gl/LWIXst

Brazilian Tropicalia music stars Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil, whose music has aways been connected to struggles for freedom, justice and equality, are scheduled to perform in Tel Aviv.