Many thousands gathered in Hyde Park, Sydney on Sunday 26th November to express their solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza that have suffered from Israel’s blockade, airstrikes and ground assaults since the attacks by Hamas on 7th October 2023.
At the time of the negotiated “pause” in Israel’s war on Gaza, the reported Palestinian death toll had exceeded 14,000, with 10,000 of these deaths comprising women and children.
In addition, thousands more have been injured and hundreds of thousands displaced by Israel’s relentless air and artillery strikes on civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, and residential areas in the densely populated Gaza Strip.
The rally was co-hosted by Palestinian activists Assala Sayara and Jennifer Yad. Apart from speeches by the co-hosts, other speakers included:
- Caroline, a First Nations activist
- Suzan Wahhab, president of Palestinian Christians in Australia
- A representative from the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement
- A 10 year old Palestinian girl.
Ms Sayara initially led chants including “Israel is a terrorist state” and “in our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinian”. Rally participants held Palestinian flags high and displayed banners with watermelons, a symbol of Palestinian resistance following the banning by Israel of the Palestinian flag in the Occupied Territories in 1967.
Ms Sayara acknowledged that the land attendees were standing on was and always will be the land of Aboriginal people. She stated that generations of both Indigenous and Palestinian people have been engaged in a struggle against colonialisation.
Further, Ms Sayara noted that Palestine is not just a land of bloodshed. It is also a land of peace. The words of the Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, were quoted: “Peace to the land which was created for peace but has never seen a peaceful day”.1
Ms Sayara emphasised that the Palestinian people continue to struggle for peace and for liberation.
She said that many supporters of the Palestinian cause have been asking: What more is there to say after 75 years of occupation? Her response:
As long as there is an occupation, there will always be words to … name and shame these ongoing decades of occupation … There will always be watermelons for resistance. There will always be ink for resistance. There will always be a heartbeat for resistance, because we Palestinians say resistance, do resistance and fight for resistance.
Ms Sayara also noted that the last 50 days of carnage in Gaza “has shown the hypocrisy of this world.” In particular, the Albanese Labor government was criticised for failing to call for an immediate and lasting ceasefire.
As well, despite the carnage, the release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons was described as “a victory for the whole of Palestine”.2
All of those in Israeli prisons are not prisoners. They are not criminals. Those who resist an occupation are not criminals. They are freedom fighters. We will not allow the mainstream media to tell us that a person who wears a keffiyeh is a terrorist. The person who wears a keffiyeh has chosen to be the right person that stands in the fight (for) humanity.
A video of the full event can be viewed here.
Notes
1. Mahmoud Darwish was born in 1941 in al-Birwa in the Western Galilee. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, his village was captured by Israeli forces and the family fled to Lebanon, first to Jezzine and then Damour. Their home village was razed by the Israeli Defence Forces to prevent its inhabitants from returning to their homes inside the new Jewish state. More information on Mahmoud Darwish’s life and poetry can be accessed here.
2. According to a report by Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, “Israel’s unlawful carceral practices were tantamount to international crimes which warranted an urgent investigation by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. All the more as these offences appeared to be part of a plan of ‘de-Palestinisation’ of the territory. This threatened the existence of a people as a national cohesive group.” Source: United Nations Human Rights Council, 10th July 2023. Currently, there are approximately 5,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons, including 160 children. Also refer to the post on the detention and mistreatment of Palestinian minors by Israeli authorities.