BAYAN calls on Filipinos to stand with Palestinians
The country’ biggest alliance of progressive organizations called on the Filipino people to stand behind Palestine in the latest act of genocide by the State of Israel.
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) in a statement said more than 8,000 Palestinians, 3,500 of whom were children, have died since Israeli retaliation started after the October 7 attacks of Hamas.
“Israeli bombs have indiscriminately destroyed Palestinian homes, schools, hospitals and places of worship. Electric, water, internet and phone services had been cut off and food and other aid could not enter Gaza,” BAYAN said.
The group said the Israeli siege against the entire Palestinian people actually begun 75 years ago when Zionists started taking over vast territories of what used to be Palestine under the Ottoman Empire.
“The Israeli occupation of the Palestinians had been cruel. The looting of land and killing and imprisonment of Palestinians are nonstop. These are what drive them to resist with both unarmed and armed means,” BAYAN said.
BAYAN said the Palestinian resistance is similar to the revolution led by the Katipunan against Spanish colonialism or the struggles of Macario Sakay and General Antonio Luna against American colonialism in the Philippines.
The alliance added that the Western-backed Israeli genocide in Palestine violates international humanitarian law, a rule United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres appealed should be observed in full measure.
In a public briefing in Egypt this weekend, Guterres also said a 20-truck convoy is awaiting permission to be allowed into the besieged territory, noting the irony that just across the border, Palestinian children, women and elderly are starving while food aid awaits to be delivered.
In its appeal, BAYAN noted the deaths of at least four Filipinos since Hamas attacked and others who may be held hostage in Gaza are in danger from Israeli bombs raining daily into the territory.
“There are many similarities between Filipinos and Palestinians. We both have a history of resistance against colonialism,” BAYAN added.
The alliance called on the Filipinos to join the call to end the bombing of civilians in Gaza and for the Palestinians to be allowed to return to their ancestral lands as the long-term solution to the war. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
