Peace Direct has joined the global call for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Palestine, Lebanon, Israel, and the wider region. We call on our governments – especially the USA and UK where we are based – to urgently end all arms sales and transfers to Israel. We call on them to bring sustainable peace by working towards an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories. We ask our audience to directly support local peacebuilders in Palestine, Lebanon, and Israel, and to add their voices to global campaigns of solidarity and demands for justice.
Last year Peace Direct published a statement condemning the appalling attacks by Hamas on October 7th and the extreme violence of the bombing campaign by Israel in Gaza. We criticised the inadequate response of Western governments and joined global calls for an immediate ceasefire.
Since then, we have watched in horror as Israeli forces have killed over 40,000 Palestinians in a campaign of ethnic cleansing that the International Court of Justice has ruled amounts to a “plausible” risk of genocide. This includes direct and targeted strikes on schools, hospitals and medical staff, essential infrastructure and refugee camps, withholding of humanitarian assistance, torture and other war crimes. Peace Direct is also appalled by Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment in Lebanon, which has killed thousands and displaced over 1.2 million people. We fear these actions and those of other states, enabled by the international community, are stoking the risk of a regional war involving Iran, Syria, and Yemen.
In the context of a decades’ long occupation and the intensification of violence by Israel’s government and settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem, we support the UN General Assembly’s resolution in September, calling for an end to new settlements and the occupation, which it declared as unlawful. Peace Direct takes the lead from local contacts in Palestine, Lebanon, and the region who tell us it is not possible to have true local “peacebuilding” in a context of such injustice and unaccountability. Nor should the cause of peacebuilding be used to normalise occupation.
Read the latest article from Sawssan Abou-Zahr, our Local Peacebuilding Expert in Lebanon.
They ask us to consider how peacebuilding can meaningfully take place in a situation of such asymmetrical warfare, and systemic violations of International Humanitarian and Human Rights Law – sustained by continued arms transfers and political cover by governments, most notably the USA and UK. They ask how it can operate in a scenario of ongoing colonial occupation, or when Palestinians and Lebanese people are continually dehumanised by western governments and international media.
As peacebuilders we must include in our understanding of “peacebuilding” the actions of global solidarity being taken around the world by Palestinians, Israelis and other campaigners – to engage their communities, end the occupation, end the culture of impunity and end the complicity of Western governments and institutions.
Peace Direct remains in solidarity with our partners, contacts and colleagues impacted by the violence. One year on, we continue to call for a permanent ceasefire, an end to arms sales, occupation and genocide. We urge the international community to listen to the voices of local peacebuilders in Palestine, Lebanon and Israel, centre oppressed communities, and to work for a genuine, positive peace with justice and accountability for all.
