Women in the besieged Gaza Strip have held a protest rally against more than a decade of Israeli siege on the impoverished enclave. RNA - Hundreds of women, under the banner of “Women against Siege,” held a demonstration in Gaza on Tuesday, chanting slogans condemning the 13-year-old Israeli blockade of the sliver.
They also called on the international community to intervene to end the siege.
“Women stand in all fields to emphasize the necessity to break the siege and end the occupation of all the Palestinian territories,” said Suhair Khader, a representative of the women organization of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
She added that the protest rally had been organized by the women committee of the High Authority that organizes the anti-Israeli Great March of Return rallies along the border separating the Gaza Strip from the Israeli occupied territories.
Palestinians have been holding weekly rallies in the Gaza Strip since March 30 last year to protest against the crippling siege imposed by the Israeli regime on the enclave and to stress the right to return of the Palestinians who have been driven out of their homeland by Israeli aggression since 1948.
At least 312 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the start of the anti-occupation protest rallies. Over 18,000 Palestinians have also sustained injuries.
Khader also stressed that the Palestinian women would not remain silent on the siege of Gaza and that the rallies would continue.
Several other rallies were said to be held in front of the Beit Hanoun (Erez) Crossing, which is under the control of Israeli authorities.
The crossing, located at the northern end of the Gaza Strip, is usually used by Gazan patients seeking treatment in Israel, Jordan, and the occupied West Bank, to which it is indirectly linked. Israel very rarely opens the crossing to patients.
Gaza has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007, which has caused a decline in living standards. Israel has launched three major wars against the enclave since 2008, killing thousands of Gazans and shattering the impoverished territory’s already poor infrastructure.
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