FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Saturday, January 10, 2009 

Contact: Ziyaad Lunat

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      ATLANTA – Children will lead a march against genocide in Gaza at 2:30 p.m. today.  The march will begin at Woodruff Park at Five Points and proceed through downtown streets to CNN for a rally.

      Children have been especially hard-hit by the Israeli massacre in Gaza, now entering its third week.  Of the 800 Palestinians killed in the Israeli assault, the UN says that 257 are children.  Additionally, children make up a large part of the 3,000 wounded Gaza civilians.

      The plight of Gazan children has been exacerbated by the shortage of medical and relief supplies, caused mainly by Israeli hostility to relief efforts.  The UN halted relief supplies this week after Israeli troops fired on a UN relief convoy and killed a truck driver.  The Red Cross and other relief agencies have reported similar Israeli interference with their efforts.  A UN human rights official has called for an investigation of reports of Israeli obstruction of relief supplies, which is a war crime.

      Although the UN Security Council has called for a cease-fire, Israeli has refused to halt its attack.  Human rights organizations say that Israel is committing numerous war crimes and a UN official said that the population in Gaza is “terrorized and traumatized.”

      “Israel is making sure that the Palestinians do not have a future by murdering their children,” said Ziyaad Lunat, an organizer of today’s march.  “We stand in solidarity with the Palestinians people in the face of efforts by Israel to ethnically cleanse them.”

       Today’s action is one of many protests taking place around the world.  US citizens are calling on the US government to stop its military and financial support to Israel and demanding that Israel’s leaders be prosecuted for war crimes at the World Court.

      Georgia residents also issued a call to Rep. John Lewis (attached), who voted yesterday for a resolution that disregards Palestinian rights and allows Israel to continue the killing.

      - more –

      Statement to Representative John Lewis 

      As citizens of conscience in Atlanta who are outraged with the most recent US-funded Israeli assault on the people of the Gaza Strip, we urge Representative John Lewis to take action and publicly speak against these atrocities. We also urge Representative Lewis not only to denounce the most recent assault in Gaza, but also to condemn Israel's 42-year occupation of Gaza that has left an entire population terrorized, traumatized and trapped.

      Given Representative Lewis' instrumental role in ending segregation in the South, we encourage him to stand against injustice and apartheid-like racism in the Occupied Territories just as he has historically done here in Atlanta and the South.

      Furthermore, we ask Representative Lewis to take the lead on the following humanitarian initiatives:

      1)      Sponsor a Congressional resolution condemning Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, particularly the most recent inhumane assault on the people of Gaza;

      2)      Sponsor a resolution insisting on Israel's compliance with international law and its adherence to the various UN resolutions condemning Israel's occupation of Palestine and numerous human rights violations; and

      3)      Introduce legislation that suspends all aid to Israel, particularly focusing on aid to the Israeli Defense Forces, the purchasing of illegal weapons and the construction and maintenance of the Apartheid Wall in the occupied West Bank.

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