Palestinian human rights activist visits Dublin

These were the words of Raji Sourani, Director of Christian Aid’s local partner in Gaza, Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), as he described to colleagues in Dublin the level of destruction in Gaza since the latest round of conflict that has ignited since the attacks on October 7^th.

“By the time I left Gaza late last year already two thirds of Gaza had been destroyed. We are seeing hundreds of people; women, children, erased daily with the most high tech arms,” Raji said.

“Hundreds of thousands of people are moving from one place to another, unsure whether they will even have a place to stay in the street, and many of them have died while moving. And at the same time there is blanket starvation,” he added.  

Raji was in Ireland to give a keynote speech at a conference in Maynooth University as well as to brief Irish politicians, development organisations and journalists about the reality of life in Gaza.

Raji urged the international community to recognise that while the current war is devastating, the situation in Gaza has been unbearable for decades, with people struggling to survive. Before October 7^th, 80% of the population of Gaza were reliant on aid.

“Nobody is talking about the history of the situation facing Palestinians before October 7^th. We have a long record of conflict since the Nakba, as well as the ongoing occupation of Palestine and the illegal blockade of Gaza,” he said.

“Israel wasn’t satisfied with those crimes of aggression, so they added more. We also had war in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021, as well as those killed during the great march of return in 2018/2019. While in the West Bank, the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements and the confiscation of Palestinian land is going on at an unprecedented scale. What is going on in the West Bank is a silent war,” he added.

PCHR is a longstanding Irish Aid funded partner of Christian Aid’s and despite the scale of the war in Gaza, it continues to monitor, document and report human rights abuses and possible war crimes. Gathering such evidence will be crucial to ensure future accountability, safeguarding the rights of victims, and pursuing justice. 

PCHR is also working with the South Africa legal team at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearing on genocide in Gaza at the Hague. Raji attended the court with the delegation in January to hear the court’s preliminary ruling, which ordered Israel to take a number of measures to prevent genocide, including enabling the provision of urgent lifesaving humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Much of PCHR’s work focuses on challenging injustice through courts and other legal means, and insisting on accountability for victims. However, Raji spoke at length about how this current period has exposed the clear double standards at play in the application of international law to conflicts around the world.

He highlighted how many countries, and particularly those in the West, rightly rallied in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, strongly opposing attacks on civilians, insisting on respect for international law and placing economic sanctions on Russia. However, the international community has failed to apply these same standards to Israel, both now and in the past. For Raji, this clear lack of consequences has emboldened Israel to continue to violate international law, and with impunity.

“This brings the Palestinian-Israeli conflict into a wider perspective –what world do we want to see? A world with the rule of law or a world with the rule of the jungle?”, Raji said.

“If you want to apply what is happening in Ukraine, then apply it in Palestine. If you want to apply the rules to Russia, then apply them against Israel. The selectivity and politicisation is bare and ugly,” he added.

Raji said that the severity of the war in Gaza has made their work even more challenging.

“We document everything; anything relating to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and persecution. We have done this during all previous wars and incidents in Gaza and the West Bank. However, in this war we cannot. If I recruited 200 more people, we still wouldn’t have the capacity to document all the crimes,” Raji said.

“I have lived there all my life but have never experienced anything like what is going on in Gaza. But we are lucky, we have really committed people on the ground,” he added.

However, like everyone in Gaza, PCHR too has suffered tragic loss. In February, two PCHR staff members were killed along with their families in airstrikes. The family of a third staff member was also killed on 10 March. In September, PCHR was working out of three offices across the Gaza strip all of which have now been destroyed. They later rented an office in Rafah but this too was bombed. Raji himself barely survived an airstrike on his family home.

Throughout the conflict, the Israeli army has repeatedly forced Palestinians to flee from one area in Gaza to the next, but even so-called ‘safe zones’ have been subject to intense bombing. As people fled south to escape bombardment, Rafah swelled to a population of 1.4 million. A chorus of Governments, UN agencies and humanitarian organisations warned that an Israeli offensive in this small, cramped area would be disastrous. For Raji, the Israeli army’s decision to go ahead with this deadly offensive in May was a telling and defining moment in the war. 

“The ultimate intention of Israel is to push every Gazan into Sinai. Everyone anticipated, especially Israel, that people would cross south into Egypt and there would be a massive transfer of people. I was very proud that the choice of the people was to not go south but to go north again to other places. The resilience people showed went far beyond my expectation,” Raji said.

“There has been nonstop bombing for nine months The bombs drop 24 hours, seven days a week. 2,000 pound bombs have been dropped. Tanks, gun boats also fire artillery. During all this time there has been no water, no electricity. Only starvation and displacement. How people were able to stay and survive, I just don’t know,” Raji added.

Despite the enormity of the suffering being inflicted on people in Gaza, Raji said many are heartened by the outpouring of solidarity and support from ordinary people around the world, as well as a handful of EU states, Ireland among them, which formally recognised the state of Palestine in May and reiterated its support for a two-state solution.

“There is something uplifting for the people in the level of solidarity that we are seeing across the globe. It’s giving a real dose of morale to the people and saying ‘you are not alone’,” Raji said.

He urged Irish people to continue to speak out, attend marches, contact politicians, demand a ceasefire and raise their voices in support for Palestinians. The active support from Irish communities, human rights organisations, aid agencies, academics, students and trade unions is crucial to keeping the issue on the agenda and delivering action, he said.

While Raji appeciates the action taken by Ireland so far, he is clear that it can and should do more to ensure Israel is held acountable. This should include legal action like supporting South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) as well as the open investigation into alleged war crimes at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Ireland must also urgently review its trade and economic relationships with Israel to ensure it is not providing any support for the occupation and the illegal settlements built on Palestinian land, and push for the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.

This agreement governs trade relations between the EU and Israel, and provides Israel with beneficial terms and access to the EU market. Crucially, it is explicitly based on respect for human rights, with both the Irish and Spanish governments recently suggesting that this has been breached and calling for a review.

“Israel put an illegal blockade on us. We have faced 17 years of social and economic suffocation. They are starving and killing people,” Raji said.

“The International Court of Justice ruled there is plausible genocide, and yet the EU still rewards Israel? What more do they have to do? The association agreement gives privileges to Israel, all I’m asking is that they stop giving them these privileges,” Raji added.

Raji said that the level of suffering being experienced by Palestinians in Gaza might give some cause to question whether there is still hope for a better future.

“Israel try by all ways and means to make us lose hope, even to make Gaza an uninhabitable place. I don’t think they have managed to do that,” Raji said.

“It is a very hard time, but hard times push us to either give up or stand up to the challenge and we have no right to give up. We refuse to be good victims. We will keep the strategic optimism in our hearts and minds and we are sure we are strong enough to make tomorrow ours. To restore our dignity and our freedom.”