[News] Israeli women refuse to leave Rafah until soldiers do

[News at freedomarchives.org]

Media Release: Israeli women refuse to leave Rafah until soldiers
do!

Issued by the Palestine Solidarity Committee
Date: 18 May 2004

The Palestine Solidarity Committee salutes the group of Israeli women
activists that is currently in confrontation with Israeli soldiers in Rafah,
the Gazan refugee camp that is besieged and under attack by Israeli
Occupation Forces (IOF).

A few women began mobilising other Israeli women yesterday to
prevent a massacre in Gaza. Some 50 of them are now at the Rafah
checkpoint. The IOF refuses to allow them into Rafah but the women
refuse to leave unless they are allowed in. And they say they will not
leave Rafah until the soldiers do!

In a statement they issued yesterday, the women said they would not
“sit still when thousands of Palestinians are turned into refugees once
again”. Referring to themselves simply as “women peace activists”,
they said: “We will stay there until this crime is stopped!!!”

This is the first such instance of Israeli citizen action against Israeli
soldiers that the PSC knows of. We salute their stand, we salute their
determination to stop the war crimes taking place in Rafah, we salute
their courage, we salute their humanity!

The women are willing to supply pictures to the media from Rafah
directly from their cellphones. If you want such pictures, please email
Dani on da-gri at barak-online.net.

For more information or interviews, contact:
The Women Peace Activists in Palestine:
Hannah: +972 66-300144
Lili: +972 53-966281

In South Africa:
Anna – 073 635 7860
(Anna, a PSC member in South Africa, worked with some of the
women in the group while she was in Palestine)

The Freedom Archives
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(415) 863-9977
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