Gaza is dying — the battle is advancing into cities packed with 1.5 million terrified civilians lacking food, medicine or water. President Bush undermined Thursday’s United Nations ceasefire resolution, over 1000 people are dead, the UN headquarters and Gaza’s main hospital are burning: there is nowhere safe. The borders remain closed — journalists can’t get in, and desperate civilians can’t get out.
But the global movement to end this war is building — our petition is at 430,000 signatures and rising, it has been delivered to top leaders at the EU, UN and Arab League, our US members are flooding their representatives with phone calls, and Avaaz members worldwide have donated over $120,000 to an ad campaign in key newspapers.
The pressure is working — so we’re ratcheting it up with hard-hitting US ads pressing Barack Obama personally for an immediate change of tack, face-to-face petition deliveries to European leaders this week to get them to act, and working with Palestinians and Israelis to plan bold actions on the ground. But every one of these actions becomes stronger as more of us join the campaign. We need to reach 1 million signatures this week — sign the petition now and let’s forward this email to all our friends and family:
Voices for a ceasefire are finally being heard in the Israeli cabinet and media, Hamas is signalling it could accept a deal including Turkish forces and EU monitors, but the sides are too far apart to end this themselves.[3] That’s why action by world powers is critical to break the deadlock — and global citizens’ voices can make all the difference if we raise an unstoppable voice calling on incoming President Obama, the EU and Arab and Muslim states to guarantee a fair and lasting ceasefire.