Local residents and peace campaigners came together today to stage a day-long solidarity fast outside the UK Government building in Cardiff, calling for ‘a sustained and permanent ceasefire in Gaza’.
The organisers behind the initiative, Cardiff Stop the War, said that some of its members organised a peaceful sit-in in front of the building in Central Square from 8AM to 5PM, while other supporters continued to join at different times throughout the day.
Other supporters of the peace group will also be participating in the 24-hour fast at work, home, and universities.
In a statement issued by the peace group ahead of the fast, they said: “The situation in Gaza has been getting worse with each day. There are no safe zones in the Gaza Strip, 2 million people are crammed wherever they can fit with no clean water or food.
“We are watching massacre after massacre unfold before our eyes and we urge it to stop. We demand a full, complete ceasefire for the preservation of human life. We demand that extensive humanitarian aid be allowed to enter Gaza. We demand an end to the occupation and justice. But none of this is possible without a full ceasefire.”
Aiman Rahim, a Cardiff Stop the War Coalition activist said: “I am fasting in solidarity with the Palestinian victims of genocide, and to push our collective demand for an immediate and full ceasefire. The UK government has been supporting this genocide by refusing to vote for the UN ceasefire resolution as well as the King’s Speech amendment calling for a ceasefire.
“The government which our taxes and votes go towards are complicit in the genocide. We condemn the UK government’s complicity and demand that our voices are heard, that the UK supports a full and immediate ceasefire in Palestine.”
Renata Medeiros Mirra, Chair of Cardiff UCU trade union branch – who are calling on their workplace Cardiff University to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to isolate Israel as we isolated apartheid in South Africa said: “Today I am fasting from sunrise to sundown for Palestine.
“I do so as part of a long and proud tradition of political protest, and as a physical manifestation of our collective hunger for justice. There is a genocide happening before our eyes. It is not acceptable to look back one day and wonder how this horror could have ever happened.
“It is happening because we allow it to happen. It is happening because we don’t hold our governments accountable. It is happening because we don’t question what is behind the money we spend. It is happening because we’re not speaking loud enough. It is happening because we are a racist, colonialist, imperialist nation. And we are not ashamed enough.
“My hunger will not feed anyone, it will not save lives, it will not stop a genocide. But it is one small part of a bigger movement of resistance, standing with Palestinians in their fight. And together we might win. We will resist with Palestine and we will be free with Palestine.”
As of 4 December, almost 16,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in the last six weeks, including 6,000 children according to Reuters. However, experts on the ground fear that the death toll could be even higher, with casualty updates that had generally been issued daily becoming irregular.
Omar Hussein Ali, director of the Ramallah ministry’s emergency operations centre, said that of the four officials who ran the Shifa data centre in Gaza, one died in an airstrike that hit the hospital while the other three went missing when Israeli forces seized the premises as an alleged Hamas hideout.
Hamit Dardagan of Iraq Body Count, set up during the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, told Reuters: “The kind of casualty recording required to understand what’s going on is getting harder. Information infrastructure, the health systems that existed, are being systematically destroyed.”
Cardiff Stop the War coalition, meanwhile, has staged a series of vigils outside the office of Jo Stevens MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, and participated with other local peace groups in weekly city centre marches calling for an immediate ceasefire and justice for the Palestinian people since October.
Adam Johannes, another Cardiff Stop the War Coalition activist added: “There is a long history of fasting in order to bring attention to an injustice. Fasting has been a protest tactic used by the Irish and Indian independence movement, the Suffragettes, and by many prisoners of conscience. All over the world, people have fasted to highlight desperately urgent causes, and as an act of witness to the suffering of others.
“Today we are fasting in support of the right of Palestinians to live freely in their own land rather than being subjected to military occupation, siege, refugee camps and exile. I will donate any money I would have spent on food today to the Middle East Children’s Alliance, a charity that runs community projects for Palestinian children.”
