Prominent rights activists launch global boycott campaign for 10 May in solidarity with Palestine

A group of prominent rights activists announced, Thursday, that they have launched a global boycott campaign beginning 10 May in solidarity with Palestine, Anadolu Agency reports.

The campaign, which was already endorsed by well-known activists, including former British Labour lawmaker, Keith Vaz, Burmese activist and genocide scholar, Maung Zarni, and Malaysian social activist, film director, educator and political comedian, Hishamudin Rais, is asking people to post videos in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, using the hashtag #RiseForRaffah.

Stressing that the initiative has no political leader or central organising body, organisers stressed that the aim is to compel political leaders to take all measures to fulfil their moral, political and legal obligations to prevent genocide.

Israel has killed more than 34,900 Palestinians, the vast majority of whom have been women and children, and injured over 78,500 following a Hamas attack last October which claimed less than 1,200 lives.

However, since then, it has been revealed by Haaretz that helicopters and tanks of the Israeli army had, in fact, killed many of the 1,139 soldiers and civilians claimed by Israel to have been killed by the Palestinian Resistance.

Seven months into the Israeli war, vast swathes of Gaza lay in ruins, pushing 85 per cent of the enclave’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of food, clean water and medicine, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which, in January, issued an interim ruling that ordered it to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

READ: Belgian university ends collaboration with Israeli institutions