International Women’s Day, we are showing support for Palestinian women
Posted: 9th March 2024
Today, Palestinian women in the Gaza Strip should be gathering to be celebrated for their contributions and accomplishments, and strategising about how to take forward the ongoing struggle for women’s rights. Instead, they are fleeing their homes under Israeli bombardment, barely surviving in tents and shelters, desperately searching for food to feed their families and grieving their dead. More than 9,000 Palestinian women have been killed by Israel’s attacks in the past 6 months, and thousands more are injured or missing.
This International Women’s Day, we are showing support for Palestinian women by keeping them at the forefront of our urgent campaign for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and an end to arms sales to Israel.
Here are three events where you can raise the demands of Palestinian women:
TOMORROW: Join us in London on our national march for Palestine, calling for a #CeasefireNOW and for the British government to #StopArmingIsrael. Begins at 12noon at Hyde Park Square in London and ends with a rally , near the US Embassy, with all women speakers.
TONIGHT: PSC is supporting this rally organised by the Feminist Strike for Palestine, a coalition of feminist groups insisting that none of us are free until all of us are free. 6:30PM, Soho Square London.
-
TUESDAY 12 March: Join us online for session 2 of our Trade Union Solidarity Webinar series. Hear from women trade unionists in Palestine and Britain about the impact of Israel’s attacks on Palestinian education, and what we can do in Britain to support Palestinian children and educators. Register here; priority for trade union members, but open to all.
This week, I spoke on an International Women’s Day panel alongside other campaigners, trade unionists and MPs (you can watch the full event here). I used my speech to pay tribute to the Palestinian women working as journalists, medical workers, teachers, community activists and others who are following the long tradition of Palestinian women tirelessly serving the needs of their people in their struggle, alongside the ordinary grandmothers, mothers, sisters and aunties who will probably never be formally recognised as heroes, but are courageously holding their community together in the face of unimaginable genocidal violence.
I had spoken with a comrade in occupied Palestine that day, who asked me to pass along the message of how important it is to her and to others that we keep marching, in our thousands and our millions, to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
The British government’s social media accounts are all about International Women’s Day today, but this just adds insult to injury in the face of the atrocities being perpetrated against Palestinian women, with full British backing and even British-made weapons.
For everyone taking action today in their workplaces and universities, thank you for what you are doing! I hope to see all of you with us tomorrow in the streets of London to demand a ceasefire, for Palestinian women, for the entire Palestinian people, and for the sake of the universal principles of freedom and justice that we all hold dear.
In solidarity,
Ryvka
PSC deputy director