Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, salutes the steadfastness, resistance, and sacrifice of the Palestinian people, particularly in the Gaza Strip, upon the announcement of a planned ceasefire and prisoner exchange in Gaza, to go into effect on January 19, 2025. As we witness the celebrations of our people from the streets of Gaza to the refugee camps of Lebanon and Syria, we join in that joy, and also in our outrage at the ongoing zionist genocide for over 76 years and our commitment to bring it to an end once and for all. Ceasefire today, liberation tomorrow!
The genocidal aggression on Gaza has taken the lives of at least 50,000 Palestinians and likely many more, with the true numbers only to be known when Palestinian civil defense, medical and reconstruction teams are able to truly begin their efforts and remove the rubble created by the unparalleled tons of US-made bombs dropped on this densely populated, small sector of Palestinian land over the past 467 days. Many of the Palestinians in Gaza who have been martyred, injured and displaced are themselves refugees from al-Nakba in 1948. Indeed, over 70% of the population in Gaza are refugees struggling to return home to their original properties, homes and lands in occupied Palestine ‘48, a fundamental right denied to them for generations.
It is their incredible courage and resistance in confronting the tanks, bombs and murderous warplanes of the zionist entity that has brought its military goals to nothing but defeat before the Palestinian people in Gaza. The genocidal enemy has utterly failed to achieve any of its declared aims. Indeed, it has wrought horrific destruction and stolen the precious lives of our doctors, nurses, health workers, journalists, teachers, poets, municipal workers, aid workers, family members and community and resistance leaders. However, it has only revealed its genocidal reality to the world – a reality known for over 100 years to the Palestinian people. It has failed to destroy the resistance, which has grown stronger despite the devastation. It has failed to reoccupy Gaza. It has failed to impose a new exile upon the Palestinians of Gaza. It has failed to obtain its prisoners back through military means; instead, it has only done so through a prisoner exchange with thousands of Palestinian hostages held captive and tortured in the dungeons of the occupation.
As we organize in the United States and take to the streets around the country, it is more clear than ever the devastating and horrific role played by the US in the genocidal aggression on the Palestinian people. At the first moment that US officials were actually serious about a ceasefire – of course, for domestic political concerns and other geopolitical interests and not to protect the lives of the Palestinian people – the zionist entity agreed within days. For the past 467 days, the US has provided an unceasing flow of billions of dollars in the most technologically advanced weaponry to the genocidal Zionist “military”, despite millions of people in this country marching in the streets, turning their campuses into Popular Universities for Gaza, and taking action against the war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is clear that this is a joint crime of US imperialism and its Zionist partners against the Palestinian people.
Of course, the genocide did not begin on October 7, 2023, but over 76 years ago and indeed over 100 years ago, with the inception of British colonialism in Palestine. The genocide of the Palestinian people is not brought to an end with this ceasefire. Instead, it requires all of our work and dedication to support the rebuilding and return of our people and to advance the struggle for liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, the only true path to ending genocide.
At this historic moment, we stand alongside all our people in saluting the heroic people of Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran and their brave resistance, who continually stood alongside Palestine with the highest of commitment and the deepest of sacrifices, on the road to al-Quds, and the people of Iraq, Iran, Syria and all of the people and nations of the region and the world that defied the genocide of Zionism and imperialism to stand beside our besieged people in Gaza.
We say today with complete certainty that our people will return to the North of Gaza and will rebuild Gaza, but, even more, that our people will return to all of Palestine, to Bir al-Saba, to Haifa and Yafa and Safad and Tabariya, to every inch of stolen land, from the river to the sea. The unbreakable resistance of the Palestinian people has shattered the war machine of the genocidal occupier, and demoralized its colonial hordes. We know that the battle is not over; Zionism is a genocidal project and has been from the beginning; and yet we are moving toward the end of the Zionist project, due to the heroism and steadfastness of the Palestinian people in Gaza, in the face of an unimaginably horrific genocide.
This is a critical moment for us to take action to ensure full accountability, prosecution and punishment for all those responsible for this genocide, from the rulers and presidents to the soldiers who sought to humiliate our people. Instead, it is the zionist entity that has been humiliated and disgraced. We will not forgive or forget; instead, we will strive relentlessly by all means for true accountability, reparations, return and liberation.
Lastly, we salute the efforts of Hind Rajab foundation for legally pursuing prosecutions of the Zionist soldiers around the world and wherever they travel. We encourage our people in the US and worldwide to apply these tactics to further reinforce the image of the Zionist gangs as genocidal hordes that are reapplying the Nazi horrors in the 21st century.
And for us – for our community in the United States, and for all the communities and people of justice who have stood by Palestine – now is the time to build and grow our movement, to nurture our connections, to support Gaza as she rebuilds, and to advance the full liberation of Palestine, with the right to return at its core, unlocking the promise of true justice. We will honor all of our beloved martyrs on the road to return, and with the moment of liberation
Victory to Palestine!
