PFLP demands UNRWA restore assistance to Gaza families, rejects all attempts to pressure Palestinians into submission

The action of UNRWA to stop providing financial assistance to the owners of destroyed home is a critical decision that is intensifying suffering in the Gaza Strip, said Comrade Jamil Mizher, member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and leader of its branch in Gaza. Mizher noted that this act will only exacerbate catastrophic conditions, the deterioration of the humanitarian situation and the electricity crisis, as well as the lack of reconstruction and growing poverty and unemployment, and can lead to a real, serious explosion at any moment.

The Front held a protest outside the UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City on February 3, urging immediate reconstruction and the delivery of funds to needy Palestinians, condemning the UN’s systematic involvement in policies that intensify the suffering of the Palestinian people.

Mizher said that UNRWA’s justifications for its decisions regarding lack of funding are untrue and insufficient; in fact, this action is putting pressure on the Palestinian masses in an attempt to undermine the resistance and force concessions upon the Palestinian people in return for limited assistance here or there and the entry of some goods.

Furthermore, Mizher said, the United Nations has demonstrated its willingness to collaborate with the occupation policy to perpetuate the siege and undermine reconstruction, as demonstrated particularly in the notorious plan of Robert Serry, with deliberate disregard for the suffering of the people.

This action threatens thousands of homeless and displaced Palestinians who remain in shelters throughout the Strip, Mizher noted.

Mizher emphasized the importance of building popular pressure to force the parties to prioritize the interests of the Palestinian people, including the UN and the Palestinian parties whose internal conflict continues to undermine reconstruction and the needed Palestinian united front to break the siege. He demanded UNRWA undo this decision and instead deliver the financial assistance to support the needs of the people, for rent and reconstruction.

For his part, Comrade Samir Baker spoke outside the UNRWA office in Gaza, saying “We stand here today…not to beg for our rights or wait for sympathy and charity, a bag of flower or a little amount of money that does not fill the mouth of a hungry child or rebuild his destroyed home, but instead to remind them of their tasks and responsibilities that must be implemented in the service of our people.”

Since the Nakba, Baker said, the UN has dealt with the issue of Palestine as a purely humanitarian issue and evading and ignoring the reality that it is a political issue of a colonized people under occupation. The establishment of the Zionist enemy announced from inside the UN, its engagement with the global colonial system and the cover it provides for the crimes and massacres of the occupation have posed a continuing obstacle to the liberation of our people, Baker said.

He noted that the slow, almost nonexistent reconstruction is intentional, taking place in collusion with the ocupation, noting that the infamous Serry plan attempted to bank reconstruction on acceptance of Zionist terms and conditions.

“We have information to indicate that UNRWA has the capacity to deal with this issue through alternate contingency plans, through the provision of an emergency budget or launching an international campaign that will highlight the responsibilities of the world – as happens every other time when there is a deficit in the UNRWA budget,” Baker said. Instead, however, the UN abandoned its legal and ethical responsibilities because it is playing a role in the international equation of pressure on our people in service of the occupation, and to turn the Palestinian people and their struggle for liberation into a struggle for a loaf of bread or an open crossing, Baker said. “Our people will fight for their rights and not auction them to states and international bodies.”

Baker pledged that the PFLP will continue its efforts to confront those who conspire against the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.

PFLP: Those who recognize the “legitimacy” of Israel are not friends of the Palestinian people

The Palestine For All Movement (MOP@T, Movimento Palestina Para Tod@s) in Sao Paulo Brazil, organized a political seminar in the headquarters of the postal workers’ union, focusing on the struggle of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails and current political developments in occupied Palestine and the region, as well as the struggles of prisoners in Brazil.

Comrade Khaled Barakat, coordinator of the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat, spoke at the event, providing an overview of the current political developments in the region, noting that “the Palestinian and Arab resistance is the only force in the region capable of defeating the settler-colonial racist state in occupied Palestine.”

“We are at a historic moment, one hundred years of Palestinian armed struggle.” Barakat said. “The Palestinian people have been confronting colonialism and occupation since 1917, through a collective historical experience that has enabled them to protect their cause against all attempts to dissolve or disperse them.”

Speaking on the political positions needed to liberate Palestine, Barakat noted that “the position of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine was, and remains, to dismantle the Zionist entity in Palestine. The Front rejects the so-called ‘two state solution’ and considers it a major betrayal of the Palestinian people and their right to return to their homes from which they were forced. It calls for the establishment of a democratic state of Palestine on the entire land of Palestine and the exercise of the Palestinian people’s right to self determination over all of their homeland.”

Barakat rejected the legitimacy of Israeli occupation anywhere on the land of Palestine, saying that any recognition of Israel’s so-called “right to exist” undermines the Palestinian people. “Those who recognize and defend Israel’s ‘right to exist’ on stolen Palestinian land cannot be true friends or part of the real solidarity movement with the Palestinian people. We must keep the flame of the struggle burning in confrontation with Israel and its supporters inside and outside Palestine, under the leadership of the Palestinian people and their resistance, and with the support of the Arab nation, the people of the region, and the progressive forces and people of the world. This is the only truly realistic and revolutionary option to change the balance of power locally and internationally and change the equation in the region to the benefit of the Palestinian people and their just struggle for liberation,” said Barakat.

He criticized the actions of the Brazilian government, which expresses verbal support for the Palestinian people while engaging in millions of dollars of economic agreements and deals with Israel, especially in the area of military cooperation and arms purchases. Barakat emphasized the need to enhance the role of trade unions and political parties in the boycott campaign to cut the relationship with Israel, noting positively the actions of Bolivia and Venezuela in cutting their relationships with the Zionist state as true models of friendship with the Palestinian people.

Barakat emphasized the legitimacy of Palestinian armed struggle despite false labelling of Palestinian resistance as “terrorism, extremism or violence,” saying that “these labels do not concern us and these descriptions hold no weight. Reality confirms the correctness of the path of armed struggle, and the Palestinian resistance will continue to develop its strength. This is borne out by the experience of the past 20 years, in which despite the Oslo agreements, the Palestinian resistance has a capacity dozens of times stronger than it has had in the past.”

Charlotte Kates, lawyer and human rights activist and the coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, also spoke at the event, detailing the experiences of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and the ongoing repression directed against the prisoners in recent years. She addressed the system of mass incarceration used to oppress the Palestinian people, and described the military courts which try Palestinians as a mockery of justice, convicting over 99.5% of the Palestinians who appear before them.

She discussed the system of administrative detention and the imprisonment of Palestinians without charge or trial, at times for long years with no reason or evidence. In addition, she explained the case of imprisoned PFLP leader Ahmad Sa’adat and his comrades, and the involvement of multiple reactionary forces: Israel, the US, Britain and the collusion of the Palestinian Authority and its security services. In addition, she discussed the cases of imprisoned Palestinian student Lina Khattab and 14-year-old imprisoned girl Malaak al-Khatib.

In addition, the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) organized meetings between Brazilian political parties and popular movements and the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat, where it was agreed to organize a series of joint events in 2015, building the movement to defend Palestinian prisoners and pressure the Brazilian government to boycott the Zionist state and end its cooperation with the occupation.

PFLP rejects appointment of biased Mladenov as UN envoy to the region

The appointment of Nikolay Mladenov as United Nations envoy to the so-called “Middle East peace process” is the antithesis of any effort to lead to real peace with justice in the region, said Comrade Kayed al-Ghoul, member of the Political Bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Mladenov is known for his statements in support of the Zionist state and justification of its crimes against the Palestinian people since he was foreign minister of Bulgaria. The United Nations’ claim to seek real peace in the region will be belied if it continues to provide cover for the crimes of the occupation, said al-Ghoul.

Al-Ghoul said that the appointment of Mladenov in this position is a further attempt by powerful parties in the international organization, particularly the United States, to strengthen the position of the occupation state in international institutions addressing the Palestinian cause and the “Arab-Israeli conflict.”

In this context, he denounced the attacks and pressures to which William Schabas, chair of the International Commission of Inquiry investigating the Israeli attack on Gaza and its war crimes against the Palestinian people, was subject by the Israeli state and its allies, forcing his resignation and leading to his replacement by a US judge on the panel. This was clearly an attempt by the Netanyahu government to cut the road in front of the findings of Schabas and the ICI on the crimes of the occupation in its war on Gaza, said al-Ghoul.

Al-Ghoul called on all Palestinian forces, including official representatives in international arenas, and PA President Abu Mazen to take action urgently to stop the appointment of Mladenov because of his clear history of positions and bias in support of the occupier, which is definitely in contradiction with the rights of the Palestinian people and incompatible with the growing international public demand to hold the Israeli state accountable for its crimes and siege, and to support the rights of the Palestinian people and their struggle for freedom and justice.

PFLP salutes the heroic operation of the Lebanese resistance

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine welcomed the heroic operation carried out by Hezbollah against the Israeli army patrol in southern Lebanon, which underscores its ability to respond to attacks, and salutes the will and the courage of the resistance forces in confronting the enemy and its presence in Palestine and anywhere in Arab lands.

Beyond being a response to the assassination of six Hezbollah fighters by the Zionist military, the Front said, this operation is an expression of the commitment to continued resistance. The Front also renewed its call for a unified resistance force in Palestine and the Arab world to resist occupation and colonialism.

The National and Islamic forces in Palestine held a press conference in support of the Lebanese resistance and its operation on January 28, saying that this action demonstrates the strength of the resistance, and calling for a unified resistance fron to confront the Zionist occupation at all times.