Hanan Jarrar
How many more need to be killed before the international community acts to hold Israel accountable for its continuing crimes against humanity?
The assassination of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh is a culmination of Israel’s 74-year long inhumane occupation of Palestine, the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948, commemorated annually on May 15 by Palestinians.
Each year we mark Nakba as a reminder of the events leading up to the creation of Israel in 1948.
A catastrophe which saw about 800 000 Palestinians being massacred and expelled from their homeland. Hundreds of villages were destroyed and millions of our descendants now live scattered as refugees all over the globe, denied the right to return to their homeland.
Abu Aqleh’s killing is a bloody reminder of the deadly system Israel has locked Palestinians in. Her death is the latest in a long line of journalists killed by the Israeli occupation forces, which have a long history of targeting reporters and other members of the media, suppressing press freedom.
Muffling the international community, its silence perpetuates Israel’s criminality.
Since 2000 Israeli occupation forces have killed at least 45 journalists who had a common voice of truth and carried out their responsibilities toward the public. All of them were deprived of their right to life for exposing Israel’s cruelty in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OTP).
The occupation is characterised by ongoing field executions against us in a systematic attempt to silence the voice of truth in Israel. To cover up their crimes and those of their settlers against our people, whose lives, land, and property are destroyed.
Nakba is a reminder of the colonial subjugation we live under by Israeli means of brute military force, while the world watches. It is a reminder that our existence is resistance.
We are being ethnically cleansed. There are continuing patterns of unlawful killings, willful injury, settler expansion and arbitrary arrests, torture and other ill-treatment and collective punishment against Palestinians, including women and children.
These crimes highlight the urgent need to end Israel’s apartheid policies and practices against our people that began 74 years ago and continues to this day.
In the early 1990s, the Palestinian leadership negotiated a solution where Palestinian aspirations for self-determination were realised in an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital on the land occupied in 1967.
By agreeing to this solution, our leadership made a historic compromise on over 88% of the land of historic Palestine.
Almost three decades after the agreement on the principles of this solution, Israel refuses to withdraw from the OTP. It further entrenches its presence by continuing to construct illegal settlements and related infrastructure.
It persists undeterred in its policies aiming at Judaizing the holy city of Jerusalem by gradually erasing its multicultural and diverse identity as a city for all faiths.
But even during the holy month of Ramadan, with impunity, Israeli police forces relentlessly raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, attacking Muslim worshippers.
The military occupation imposed since 1967 over the remaining 22% of the area of historic Palestine provides Israel with the opportunity to grow its settlements while subjecting us to a brutal apartheid regime.
For far too long the international community has looked away. Abu Aqleh’s death has drawn global eyes to us. Like all journalists before her, she died as she lived.
Showing the world the brutality of atrocities that Israel commits in its 74-year long inhumane occupation of Palestine, Nakba - the destruction of our society and homeland and the permanent displacement of a majority of the Palestinian Arabs.
We might be mourning, but we are proud to recognise Africa Month as a time of unity that brought the continent together against colonisation and oppression through the founding of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963, the precursor to the African Union.
While May is sorrowful for Palestine, we look to the struggles of the many African countries that have achieved independence from their oppressors.
They have endured the horrors of colonialism and rejected Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
We call on them to be standard-bearers in our struggle for self-determination and statehood and to lead international efforts to end Israel’s colonial occupation and apartheid regime.
We demand accountability for Israel’s crimes.
Africa should not associate itself with this brutal colonial project continuing in the 21st century.
The international community, nations, governments, activists and international media outlets that proactively condemned Israel’s killing of Abu Aqleh, must equally condemn Israel’s apartheid policies and practices against our people.
Her killing is a reminder that Nakba continues to this day.
Condemning actions the international community must act to hold Israel accountable for its continuing crimes against humanity.
Hanan Jarrar is Palestine’s non-resident ambassador to Malawi, Namibia and Lesotho, and ambassador of Palestine to South Africa with residency.