Peaceful protesters in Aotearoa New Zealand’s largest city Auckland held an Easter prayer vigil honouring Palestinian political prisoners and the sacrifice of thousands of innocent lives as relentless Israeli bombing of displaced Gazans in tents killed at least 92 people in two days.

Organisers of the rally for the 80th week since the war began in October 2023 said they aimed for a shift in emphasis for quietness and meditation this spiritual weekend.

“This is dedicated to the Palestine Prisoners’ Day and those who have died, innocent of any crime — women, children, journalists, patients, friends, healthcare workers, those buried under rubble, non-military civilians,” said Kathy Ross of Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

“All those starving and needing our help,” she added.

The organisers created a flowers and candles circle of peace with hibiscus blossoms in an area of Britomart that has become dubbed “Palestinian Corner”.

Placards declared “Free all Palestinian prisoners — all 10,000 people” and “Release the Palestinian prisoners.”

Palestinian fusion dancer and singer Rana Hamida, who last year sailed on the Freedom Flotilla boat Handala in an attempt to break the Israel siege of Gaza, spoke about how people could keep their spirits up in the face of such terrible atrocities, and sang a haunting hymn.

Calmness and strength
She also described how the air and wind could help protesters seek calmness and strength in spite of storms like Cyclone Tam that gusted across much of New Zealand yesterday on Good Friday causing havoc.

She spread her arms like wings as Palestinian flags fluttered strongly, saying: “The wind is now blowing in exactly the right direction.”

Another PSNA organiser, Del Abcede, spoke about the incarceration of Palestinian paediatrician Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, who was kidnapped by the Israeli military last December 27 — two days after Christmas – and has been held in detention without charge and under torture ever since.

“The reason why he was arrested is because he would not leave his hospital or his patients,” she said, adding that he had been held incommunicado for a long time.

“I want to dedicate a special honour and prayer for him and I hope that he will be released soon.”

Beaten in prison
Dr Safiya is suffering from a serious eye injury as a result of being beaten in Israeli prison, his lawyer has revealed to media.

According to lawyer Ghaid Qassem, Dr Abu Safiya has been classified by Israeli authorities as an “unlawful combatant” but has not yet been charged or received any court trials.

Despite a global campaign calling for him to be released from prison, Israeli authorities have continued to interrogate and torture Dr Abu Safiya.

Another speaker at the vigil, Dr David Robie, said he had been a journalist for 50 years and he found it “shameful” that the Western media — including Aotearoa New Zealand — failed to report the genocide and ethnic cleansing truthfully, and in fact was normalising the “horrendous crimes”.

He called for silent prayer for the at least 232 Gazan journalists killed — many along with their entire families — who had been courageously reporting the truth to the rest of the world.

Banners at the vigil referred to “Jesus [was] Palestinian – born in Bethlehem” and “Let Gaza live”. One placard declared “Jesus was an anti-imperialist Palestinian Jew who preached (and practised) radical love for all – not a violent bully bigot”.

Other vigils and protests took place across New Zealand at Easter weekend, especially in Ōtautahi Christchurch.

‘Violating’ religious status quo
Meanwhile, in Jerusalem reports were emerging that Israelis were “taking pride in violating the status quo” with religious traditions at Easter.

Xavier Abu Eid, a political scientist and former adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) from occupied East Jerusalem, explained on Al Jazeera that Jerusalem, “has a very central place” in the history of Palestinian Christians.

“We have to … understand what the Israeli occupation is doing to all Palestinians, because there is a concept. … It’s called the status quo. It’s understood and it’s under a very old agreement, centuries or older than the state of Israel,” he said.

Under the status quo, “the status of Christian and Muslim holy sites, including Al-Aqsa Mosque, for example, and the Holy Sepulchre, would be respected,” Dr Eid explained.

Despite this, he said, “Israeli government officials are taking pride in violating the status quo of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound by allowing Israeli settlers to pray in Al-Aqsa Mosque”.

He said the Israeli authorities are also trying to “turn the Mount of Olives, a very important place for this [Easter] celebration, into an Israeli national park”.

“So you’re talking about a community that feels under threat, not just from a national point of view with the Israeli government, pushing for ethnic cleansing and annexation, but also from the traditions that religiously we have kept here for generations,” he noted.

The UN Palestine relief agency UNRWA reports that after 1.5 years of war in Gaza, at least 51,000 Palestinians have been killed, 1.9 million people have been forcibly displaced multiple times, and the Israel military has blocked humanitarian aid from entering the besieged enclave for seven weeks.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Israel is forcing two hospitals in northern Gaza to evacuate under threat of attack as its ethnic cleansing campaign continues.

Israeli forces have surrounded the Indonesian Hospital, where many staff and patients sought shelter after nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was destroyed in an Israeli raid last week, reports Al Jazeera.

Late on Friday, a forced order to evacuate was also issued for the al-Awda Hospital, where 100 people are believed to be sheltering.

The evacuation order came today as New Zealand Palestine solidarity protesters followed a silent vigil outside Auckland Hospital yesterday with a rally in downtown Auckland’s Te Komititanga Square today, where doctors and other professional health staff called for support for Gaza’s besieged health facilities and protection for medical workers.

When one New Zealand medical professional recalled the first time that the Israel military bombed a hospital in in Gaza November 2023, the world was “ready to accept the the lies that Israel told then”.

“Of course, they wouldn’t bomb a hospital, who would bomb a hospital? That’s a horrible war crime, if must have been Hamas that bombed themselves.

“And the world let Israel get away with it. That’s the time that we knew if the world let Israel get away with it once, they would repeat it again and again and we would allow a dangerous precedent to be set where health care workers and health care centres would become targets over and over again.

“In the past year it is exactly what we have seen,” he said to cries of shame.

“We have seen not only the targeting of health care infrastructure, but the targeting of healthcare workers.

“The murdering of healthcare workers, of aid workers all across Gaza at the hands of Israel — openly without any word of opposition from our government, without a word of opposition from any global government about these war crimes and genocidal actions until today.”

In an impassioned speech about the devastating price that Gazans were paying for the Israeli war, New Zealand Palestinian doctor and Gaza survivor Dr Abdallah Gouda vowed that his people would keep their dream for an independent state of Palestine and “we will never leave Gaza”.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has called for an investigation into the Israeli attacks on Gaza hospitals and medical workers.

Volker Türk told the UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East that Israeli claims of Hamas launching attacks from hospitals in Gaza were often “vague” and sometimes “contradicted by publicly available information”.

Palestine urges UN to end Gaza genocide, ‘Israeli impunity’
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the UN, said: “It is our collective responsibility to bring this hell to an end. It is our collective responsibility to bring this genocide to an end.”

Norway is the latest country to condemn the attacks on Gaza’s hospitals and medical workers.

On X, the country’s Foreign Ministry said that “urgent action” was needed to restore north Gaza’s hospitals, which were continuously subjected to Israeli attack.

Without naming Israel, the ministry said that “health workers, patients and hospitals are not lawful targets”.

Urgent action is needed to restore North Gaza’s hospitals and uphold international humanitarian law.

Protecting healthcare saves lives.
We share WHOs concern at #UNSC

Health workers, patients, and hospitals are not lawful targets. https://t.co/VWswcGhCex

— Norway MFA (@NorwayMFA) January 3, 2025

Israel ‘deprives 40,000’ of healthcare in northern Gaza
The Israeli military is systematically destroying hospitals in northern Gaza, the Gaza Government Media Office said.

In a statement, it said: “The Israeli occupation continues its heinous crimes and arbitrary aggression against hospitals and medical teams in northern Gaza, reflecting a dangerous and deliberate escalation.”

These acts, it added, were being carried out amid “unjustified silence of the international community and the UN Security Council”, violating international humanitarian law and human rights conventions.

The statement highlighted the destruction of Kamal Adwan Hospital, where its director, Dr Hussam Abu Safia, was arrested and reportedly subjected to physical and psychological abuse.

The GMO described these acts as “full-fledged war crimes”.

According to a recent report by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Israeli military had conducted more than 136 air raids on at least 27 hospitals and 12 medical facilities across Gaza in the past eight months.

The GMO report demanded an independent international investigation into these violations and accountability for Israel in international courts.

Amnesty International criticises detention of Kamal Adwan doctor
Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of the human rights watchdog Amnesty International, said Israel’s detention of Dr Hussam Abu Safia underscored a pattern of “genocidal intent and genocidal acts” by Israel in Gaza.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz