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Statement
NCCAR calls for an immediate halt to Israeli attacks on Gaza
Ottawa , December 27, 2008 -- NCCAR joins the European Union and UN leader Ban Ki-moon in urging an immediate halt to Israeli air strikes and Palestinian attacks in and around Gaza and the lifting of Israeli blockades in the area. NCCAR calls on Canada to also firmly reiterate Israel 's obligation to uphold international humanitarian and human rights law and condemn excessive use of force leading to the killing and injuring of civilians. “ Israel knows it cannot avoid harm to innocent Palestinian civilians by so-called ‘targeting' of Hamas security centres in urban areas, given that half of the 1.5 million people in densely-populated Gaza are children. Within just a few hours, over 200 people have been killed and more than 700 wounded, many of them women and children. These are not “collateral damage” or dry statistics, but real people, just as real as any other human beings anywhere else in the world, whose deaths must be condemned in the strongest terms,” said NCCAR President Bahija Réghaï. According to Israeli Human Rights organization Gush Shalom, Israel is to blame for the escalation of violence: ‘'“It is Israel which broke the truce – already a month and a half ago, in early November, the State of Israel broke the truce in a series of military attacks on Gaza, which caused the death of six Palestinians. In this way, the government of Israel , with its own hands, brought a rain of Qassam missiles upon the heads of the inhabitants of Sderot and the other Gaza Border communities,” said the Gush Shalom statement... “Afterwards, every time that the situation started calming down, more Palestinians were killed by the army, their killing provoking new salvos of missiles. Now, the government is using the breaking of the truce as the pretext to launch a new military offensive.” NCCAR urges the Canadian government to call for an immediate ceasefire, for all the protection owed civilians under international and humanitarian law and for the blockade of Gaza to be lifted, including ensuring free access for international humanitarian organizations, journalists and diplomats, which Israel has blocked. Furthermore, NCCAR calls on Canada to promote diplomacy over escalating military violence in order to achieve human security for both Israeli and Palestinian civilians. - 30 - Contact: Samah Sabawi: 613-878-3965 - E mail: president@nccar.ca
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