Intense Israeli bombardment and ground operations as well as heavy fighting between Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups continue to be reported across much of the Gaza Strip, particularly in Az Zaitoun area of Gaza city and in northwest Khan Younis, resulting in further civilian casualties, displacement, and destruction of houses and other civilian infrastructure. Palestinian armed groups continued to fire rockets into Israel.
Between the afternoon of 1 March and 10:30 on 4 March, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza, 306 Palestinians were killed, and 543 Palestinians were injured, including 124 killed and 210 injured in the past 24 hours. Between 7 October 2023 and 10:30 on 4 March 2024, at least 30,534 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and 71,920 Palestinians were injured, according to MoH.
Amid the deadly war in Gaza, over 200 legislators from 11 countries unite to oppose their countries’ arms exports to Israel. In a declaration published by the Progressive International parliamentarians declared “our commitment to end our nations’ arms sales to the State of Israel.”
British protesters occupy the Israeli Elbit Systems factory in Birmingham (Photo: Campaign Against Arm Trade)
“Our bombs and bullets must not be used to kill, maim, and dispossess Palestinians. But they are: we know that lethal weapons and their parts, made or shipped through our countries, currently aid the Israeli assault on Palestine that has claimed over 30,000 lives across Gaza and the West Bank. We cannot wait. Following the interim ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Genocide Convention case against the State of Israel, an arms embargo has moved beyond a moral necessity to become a legal requirement.
“We will not be complicit in Israel’s grave violation of international law. The ICJ ordered Israel not to kill, harm or ‘deliberately [inflict] on the [Palestinians] conditions of life calculated to bring about… physical destruction.’ They have refused. Instead, they press on with a planned assault on Rafah that the Secretary General of the United Nations has warned will ‘exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare.’ Today, we take a stand. We will take immediate and coordinated action in our respective legislatures to stop our countries from arming Israel, “they said
Among signatories: Janet Rice, Australian Parliament; Larissa Waters, Australian Parliament; Max Chandler-Mather , Australian Parliament; Ludwig Vandenhove, Belgian Federal Parliament; Melissa Depraetere, Belgian Federal Parliament; Nilto Tatto, Brazilian National Congress; Chico Alencar, Brazilian National Congress; Luiza Erundina, Brazilian National Congress; Niki Ashton, Canadian Parliament; Matthew Green, Canadian Parliament; Alma Dufour, French National Assembly; Nadège Abomangoli, French National Assembly; Manuel Bompard, French National Assembly Idir Boumertit, French National Assembly; Éric Coquerel, French National Assembly; Alexis Corbière, French National Assembly; Arnaud Le Gall, French National Assembly; Andrej Hunko, German Bundestag; Nicole Gohlke, German Bundestag; Bernd Riexinger, German Bundestag; Kathrin Vogler, German Bundestag; Thomas Pringle, Irish Oireachtas; Jimmy Dijk, Parliament of the Netherlands; Mariana Mortágua, Portuguese Parliament; Pedro Filipe Soares, Portuguese Parliament; Enrique Santiago, Spanish Cortes Generales; Gorka Elejabarrieta, Spanish Cortes Generales; Gala Pin, Spanish Cortes Generales; Cengiz Çandar, Turkish Grand National Assembly; Sezgin Tanrıkulu, Turkish Grand National Assembly; Jeremy Corbyn, UK Parliament; Richard Thomson, UK Parliament; Alan Brown, UK Parliament; Rashida Tlaib, US Congress and Cori Bush, US Congress.
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