Women in Black: Int'l Day of Protest against Israeli Occupation

This Friday, June 8th, from 5-6:30pm, at the corner of Montgomery and Market Street in San Francisco will be the local site for an
international day of protest against the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Protests will be going on all over the world on this day
and on the weekend.


Why are we protesting?
The ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands is an obstacle to peace. Since 1967, Israel has occupied lands conquered in the Six Day War on which live 3.5 million Palestinians-many of whom were displaced during the 1948 Israeli-Arab war-and has failed to abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention that stipulates the rights of an occupied people. It has used the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to brutally suppress all active resistance to the Occupation, both armed
and unarmed.


We call for an end to the Occupation and a just and viable settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in accordance with international law. Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights are an obstacle to peace. In the past 8 months, in response to the revival of the Palestinian Intifada (uprising against the Occupation), the level of
violence has escalated rapidly and alarmingly, and while this is true on both sides, the Israeli army is using attack helicopters, air-to-surface missiles, tanks, F16 fighter jets, and M16 automatic weapons whose bullets, when fired at demonstrators at short range, cartwheel through the body and fragment, resulting in death and life-long
disabilities. Many human rights groups have called for outlawing the use of these bullets. Though almost 100 Israelis have been killed in
the current round of violence, almost 500 Palestinians-almost all
unarmed-have been killed to date and 14,000 more wounded, with one in 10 permanently disabled.

All Palestinian population centers are tightly ringed by the Israeli army, and the ability of the Palestinians to move about from one city
or town to another is rigidly controlled. Many of the population centers are literally under siege, necessitating humanitarian aid in the form of food and medicines. People are unable to get to doctors and hospitals, women are giving birth at Israeli checkpoints because they are not allowed to pass. Students and faculty are unable to get
to schools. Workers cannot go to work. The unemployment rate among the Palestinians is almost 50% and rising. Most Palestinians in the
Occupied Territories live below the poverty line.

Reports by The Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Physicians for Human Rights, the Israeli organization B'Tzelem, the U.N.
Commission for Human Rights, the U.S. State Department and the Mitchell Commission—all document Israeli violations of human rights.


Organized by Women in Black, wibberkeley [at] yahoo.com