[Mitai-announce] Fwd: What Congress should do on Gaza

Thu Jan 15 14:09:51 EST 2009

----- Forwarded message from alerts at takeaction.amnestyusa.org -----
    Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2009 10:31:22 -0800
    From: Amnesty International USA <alerts at takeaction.amnestyusa.org>
Reply-To: alerts at takeacion.amnestyusa.org
 Subject: What Congress should do on Gaza
      To: MIT Amnesty International <mitai-exec at mit.edu>

With innocent civilians, women and children dying every day, Congress
must act.

Tell Congress to help get more humanitarian aid into Gaza and to
suspend all transfers of weapons to Israel
<http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=11595&tr=y&auid=4410646>

Dear MIT Amnesty,

20 days into the Gaza crisis and the humanitarian crisis there gets
worse every day.

Over 1000 Palestinians have been killed; 398 women and children are
dead, another 4500 injured, 750,000 lack access to water and one
million are without electricity. Thirteen Israelis, including three
civilians have been killed(1).

Each day that passes guarantees more innocent civilians will suffer.
Tell Congress to act swiftly to help more humanitarian aid and
workers enter Gaza and to suspend all transfers of weapons to Israel:

http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=11595&tr=y&auid=4410646

Almost 30,000 of you sent letters to Secretary Rice. Your letters
together in concert with separate parallel actions from other Amnesty
sections around the world helped bring about a positive vote at the UN
late last week (2-6). The UN passed a binding resolution 14-0 on January
8th calling for an immediate cease-fire(7).

But despite mounting evidence of war crimes, both Israel and
Palestinian armed groups continue to defy the resolution.

It’s critical that Congress acts. Congress can take two actions
that will make a significant impact on the ground:

Please forward this email.
Congress must act.

			 ACT NOW and then PLEASE FORWARD this email.

1. Urge Israel to allow for increased humanitarian supplies into Gaza
and press Egypt to allow more wounded Palestinians to seek medical
treatment in Egypt.

The Israeli three hour truce to allow for humanitarian supplies to
enter Gaza is not sufficient. A spokesman for the UN relief agency
UNWRA said “When you are trying to feed 750,000 people a day in
Gaza as we are, you need a permanent ceasefire. You can’t do that
in a three-hour window.”8

Although Egypt has opened the Rafah crossing allowing limited medical
help in and injured Palestinians out, the number allowed to seek
medical care outside of Gaza needs to increase dramatically. There
are currently 4500 wounded Palestinians.

2. Suspend all transfers of weapons to Israel until there is no
longer a substantial risk that they will be used for serious
violations of human rights or international humanitarian law -- such
as in attacks that disproportionately kill civilians -- while
pressing all sides to stop unlawful attacks.

AI is calling for a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, Hamas and
Palestinian armed groups. The US Arms Export Act of 1976 was passed
to help guarantee that US-made weapons would only be used for
legitimate self-defense and not for violations of internationally
recognized human rights. The act requires the State Department to
report to Congress when there is a ‘’substantial violation” of
the law9.

These demands comply with widely recognized international human
rights law. TELL CONGRESS TO ACT NOW, AND THEN PLEASE FORWARD THIS
EMAIL. Time has run out for the civilians of Gaza and Israel.

For daily updates and detailed information on the crisis, visit our
blog at BLOG.AMNESTYUSA.ORG and our ONLINE Q&AMP;A with Amnesty
International researcher Donatella Rovera stationed in southern
Israel.

Thank you for your continued support.

  Sincerely,

Curt Goering
Deputy Executive Director

[1] http://www.ochaopt.org/?module=displaysection§ion_id=11[8]
[2] http://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions_details.asp?ActionID=551[9]
[3] http://www.amnesty.org.au/centre/action/20079[10]
[4] http://amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/pages/crisis-in-gaza[11]
[5]
http://www.amnesty.fr/index.php/amnesty/s_informer/actualites/gaza_et_israel_proteger_les_civils[12]
[6] http://www.amnesty.ca/urgentappeal/2009/gaza/email/[13]
[7]
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29495&Cr=gaza&Cr1[14]
[8] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7815929.stm [15]
[9]
http://blog.amnestyusa.org/us/us-must-monitor-use-of-us-weapons-in-gaza/
[16]

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[2]
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[3]
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[5]
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[8] http://www.ochaopt.org/?module=displaysection&section_id=11
[9] http://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions_details.asp?ActionID=551
[10] http://www.amnesty.org.au/centre/action/20079
[11] http://amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/pages/crisis-in-gaza
[12]
http://www.amnesty.fr/index.php/amnesty/s_informer/actualites/gaza_et_israel_proteger_les_civils%22
[13] http://www.amnesty.ca/urgentappeal/2009/gaza/email/
[14] http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29495&Cr=gaza&Cr1
[15] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7815929.stm
[16] http://blog.amnestyusa.org/us/us-must-monitor-use-of-us-weapons-in-gaza/

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