(Left) former EU parliament Vice President Luisa Morgantini; (Right) former foreign minister of Iceland Ingibjorg Solrun GisladottirMa'an
The international community must “suspend all military aid to Israel and suspend investment in settlements in the West Bank,” former EU parliament Vice President Luisa Morgantini said on Friday outside the homes of evicted East Jerusalem Palestinians.
“It’s not enough to call for a stop to the settlements. We need the international community to take concrete action,” she said.
Morgantini was part of a high-ranking international women’s coalition which called for the world to take action to reverse Israel’s forcible eviction of two Palestinian families from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem.
The members of the tripartite International Women’s Commission (IWC) spoke alongside members of the now-homeless Ghawi and Hanoun families. They included the former foreign minister of Iceland, Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir, Israeli peace advocates, and the Palestinian deputy minister of women’s affairs, Salwa Hdeib.
Israeli police forced more than fifty members of the two families from two buildings in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood into the street on 2 August, making way for Israeli settlers to take over the houses.
“We came here today to link the IWC’s long aim, which is to establish peace based on human rights and international law, to the call to stop all evictions,” said Morgantini in an interview with Ma’an shortly after a press conference on the sidewalk outside the Hanoun family home.
“Today was very important,” Morgantini said, “because it showed Palestinian, Israeli, and international women speaking with one voice.”
Morgantini and Gisladottir with evicted Palestinians
The IWC, a coalition of prominent Palestinian, Israeli, and International women, was set up during a meeting in Istanbul in 2005. Supported by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the organization is co-chaired by Finnish President Tarja Halonen and Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf...
Until the international community takes action, the Ghawi and Hanoun families are cooking their meals and spending their nights on the sidewalk near their former homes. In the Ghawi building, two settler families who originally moved into the building have since vacated. A private Israeli security contractor now guards the building, and a security camera has been installed. The building’s windows, smashed when Israeli police raided it on 2 August, remain unrepaired... Full story
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