The Brazilian Center for Solidarity with the Peoples and Struggle for Peace (Cebrapaz) again manifests its deepest concerns about the latest developments in occupied Palestine, where the Palestinian people bravely resists against another wave of violence by the Zionist regime and the settlers it protects.

Between October 1st and 12th over 25 Palestinians were killed by the occupation forces - 10 of them were minors; over 500 people were injured in intensified confrontation and over a thousand were arrested. The Israeli Governments, furthermore, determined a "minimal prison sentence" for those accused of throwing stones and Molotov cocktails against military vehicles and heavily armed soldiers.

Besides, Palestinian and Israeli human rights NGOs denounce the support given by the Israeli soldiers to settlers in their growing attacks against the Palestinian population. However, it is the Palestinians' actions - resulted from exasperation regarding the negligence of great part of the global leadership - that are classified as "terrorist".

The organizations and the Palestinian Government also denounce "collective punishment" practices - such as house demolitions, which is a war crime, according to International Law. These are only one kind of practice through which the Israeli regime goes with impunity, but does not go unharmed.

The international solidarity with the Palestinian people is getting stronger. It still has, though, a long and decisive path, in its demand for the immediate end of the Israeli occupation and for the Zionist leadership's accountability over the crimes that have sustained their regime for so many decades.

As long as the occupation persists, sustained by US imperialism, the struggle for the liberation of Palestine will prolong, reproducing cycles of violence as well as the criminal and brutal repression of the resistance. The world must take responsibility for the end of the Zionist colonialism and the "ethnic cleansing" of the Palestinian people!

Socorro Gomes
President of Cebrapaz