DEMONSTRATE AGAINST THE ISRAELI ASSAULT ON GAZA!

*WHEN: 2pm on Sunday December 28, 2008
*WHERE: Israeli Consulate, 180 Bloor St. W (at Queen's Park)

The Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid (CAIA) joins Palestine House, the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF), Women in Solidarity with Palestine (WISP), Not in our Name: Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism (NION), and other respected community organizations in protesting this latest Israeli assault on the people of Gaza.

CAIA is calling on its friends and allies to respond with outrage to the latest massacre of Palestinians by the Israeli apartheid regime. At least 225 Palestinians have already been killed and over 700 injured in sustained Israeli aerial assaults on the Gaza Strip within the past 24 hours. The threat of further killings still hangs heavily over the skies of Palestine. This marks the single largest massacre in Gaza since Israel illegally occupied the area in 1967. The numbers of dead are steadily mounting, especially as already limited medical supplies are running out due to the brutal siege imposed against Gaza since 2006.

While the Western media reports that the raids targeted Hamas 'operatives,' the dead include women, children and men of all walks of life. "Operation Cast Lead" has echoes of previous Israeli raids into Gaza that have been characterized by indiscriminate attacks on civilian population centers, mass detentions, violent house demolitions and other forms of collective punishment. Such actions need to be strongly and unconditionally condemned.

This attack comes just days after the so-called 'ceasefire' between Hamas and Israel expired. During this alleged ceasefire, Israel continued to impose its brutal siege on Gaza, restricting the flow of aid, medical supplies, fuel and other necessities of life into the territory. For the past two years Gaza has been undergoing the daily violence of a wide-ranging humanitarian catastrophe triggered by severely reduced access to energy, food, and medicines. In effect, Gaza is the world's largest open air prison. The UN and others in the international community condemned the humanitarian disaster created by Israel's siege during the time of this 'ceasefire'. Israel now claims that this operation is in response to Hamas refusing to renew this sham of a ceasefire. Once again, Israel is imposing collective punishment on the people of Gaza for electing a Hamas government.

As people of conscience, CAIA members are particularly angered by the Canadian government's on-going support for the Israeli apartheid regime - including the intensification of bilateral military, political and economic links between Canada and Israel. This latest massacre occurs in the context of official Canadian complicity with, and support for, Israel's illegal siege and starvation of the civilian population in Gaza.

At this moment, we can only reaffirm our commitment in the strongest possible terms to continue mobilizing to respond to the call by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations for a comprehensive campaign of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS). As H.E. Father Miguel D'Escoto Brockman, President of the United Nations General
Assembly state in a recent speech: "More than twenty years ago we in the United Nations took the lead from civil society when we agreed that sanctions were required to
provide a nonviolent means of pressuring South Africa to end its violations. Today, perhaps we in the United Nations should consider following the lead of a new generation of civil society, who are calling for a similar non-violent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions to pressure Israel to end its violations."

CONTACT:
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid
www.caiaweb.org
endapartheid@riseup.net

Demonstration Organized By:

Canadian Arab Federation
Palestine House
Women in Solidarity with Palestine (WSP)
Not In Our Name (NION): Jewish Voices Opposing Zionism
Muslim Association of Hamilton
International Jewish anti-Zionist Network – Toronto
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid
Palestinian Association of Brantford (PAB)