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Thirty years ago, the Israeli army invaded Lebanon and occupied the capital Beirut. Occupants launched Lebanese militias against Palestinian refugee camps and, in Sabra and Shatila, many hundreds - possibly thousands - of Palestinians, mostly women and children, were savagely massacred. On 16 December of that same year, 1982, the UN General Assembly classified the massacres (no votes against) as an act of genocide. All those responsible for the massacre remain unpunished, including Ariel Sharon, then Israel's defense minister and military chief of the invasion of Lebanon, and who would later become Prime Minister of Israel.The massacre of Sabra and Shatila is a particularly heinous in a long series of crimes that have marked the history of Israel, from its inception to the present day. Yet earlier this month of September 2012, Israel repeatedly bombed the Gaza Strip, causing casualties among the civilian population. According to the latest annual report (2011) of the Palestinian Centre...

In the passage of the 50th anniversary of the independence of Algeria, MPPM sent the following message to His Excellency Ms. Fatiha Selmane, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria in LisbonLisbon, July 5th, 2012ExcellenceThe Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and Peace in the Middle East (MPPM) is honored to salute and congratulate Your Excellency, the heroic Algerian people and its Sovereign institutions - of which your Excellency is the high representative - for the passage of so glorious date, the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of independence.There were many decades of resistance and popular struggles in towns, cities and fields against foreign occupation and colonialism, to the sacrifice of the peaceful protesters at the colonialist massacre at Sétif on May 8, 1945, which paved the way for the uprising of 1 November and for the 8 years of the Great National Liberation War. This was victorious, in spite of...

On the second anniversary of the death of José SaramagoTwo years ago, on 18 June, José Saramago, President of the MPPM, entered the pantheon of defenders of the two great indivisible causes of humanity - national and social liberation and peace among peoples.In the recent seminar on "The Question of Palestine and the Peace in the Middle East," sponsored by MPPM, with the participation of Ambassador Abdou Salam Diallo, Chairman of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, and Ambassador Riyad Mansour, Permanent Representative of Palestine to the UN, was underlined Saramago's historical contribution to the cause of Palestine and the formation and growth of the MPPM.From what precedes and because increasingly worsen the wars of aggression, the dangers of war, and the threat of war in the Middle East - and is blocked by Israel, the U.S. and other Western powers the way for the exercise of the rights of the Palestinian people - we call, on this...

The Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and the Peace in the Middle East MPPM) held on June 2, in the Auditorium Armando Guebuza of Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias, in Lisbon, an International Seminar on "The Question of Palestine and the Peace in the Middle East".On the occasion, visited us at the invitation of our Movement, a delegation of the United Nations composed of Ambassador Abdou Salam Diallo, Ambassador of Senegal to the United Nations and Chairman of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, Ambassador Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the UN, and by Mrs. Eleonore Kopera, responsible for the Political Affairs at the Division for Palestinian Rights of the United Nations.In the morning, the delegation of the United Nations was received in the Parliament by members from all parliamentarian groups, to whom it explained the work of the UN in defense of the inalienable rights of the...

The announcement that the Israeli authorities were forced to accept the end of the "administrative detention", the end of the containment isolation in prison and visits from family members of detainees, among other claims, means the success of the fair and courageous struggle of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners, who conducted a hunger strike in Israeli jails.Given the strength of Palestinian political prisoners and the growing solidarity with their heroic struggle, the Israeli authorities were forced to yield.However, as history sadly demonstrates, there are so many agreements signed by the Israeli authorities with the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority and Israel as those they do not fulfill.As pointed out, the struggle of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails illustrates the tragedy of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation, the crushing of their identity and of the fulfillment of their legitimate rights.In fact, without the release...

The hunger strike initiated by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails - which is reinforced and expanded every day, with new members - is a rallying cry, radical and courageous, released worldwide on the condition of the martyred Palestinian people. With their silence and their determination, more than two thousand Palestinian prisoners make clear the violence of Israeli occupation, the iniquity of the situation that these people have been forced to live, and their indomitable will and determination to continue the struggle for the realization of their inalienable rights.The situation in Israeli jails reflects the repressive, authoritarian and undemocratic nature of the policy conducted by the state of Israel. More than three hundred Palestinians are now imprisoned, many for several years, without having been pronounced against them a single charge, or without their own lawyers being able to prepare and present their defense. The isolation, sometimes for several years, the ban on...

MPPM calls for European Parliament's rejection of trade agreement with Israel which would represent connivance of the European Union with the policy of expropriations, evictions and colonization carried out by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territories.It is known that the European Parliament will consider in the coming days, the establishment of an ACAA protocol (Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance of Industrial Products) with the State of Israel which, if approved, is an instrument for strengthening economic relations between the EU and that country.It is also known that the State of Israel persists in the occupation and colonization of Palestinian territories in open defiance of international law. Under this policy, Israel has, indeed, intensified settlement construction and expansion, while it has multiplied the measures and actions to cause the expulsion of Palestinian populations from their lands. Such a policy has sparked a widespread condemnation in the...

In March 1976, Israeli authorities announced the confiscation of thousands of acres of Palestinian land from villages in the Galilee "for security reasons", which they did following the imposition of curfew. The local Palestinian leaders responded with the call for a general strike and demonstrations against the expropriation of land in all Palestinian cities on March 30.Although Israel had outlawed all demonstrations, more than 400,000 people responded to the call by joining the general strike and participating in peaceful demonstrations, from north to south of Israel. There were also solidarity strikes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. To these peaceful demonstrations Israel responded to the intervention of armed forces, backed by tanks, in Palestinian villages. This led to the killing of six unarmed Palestinians and hundreds of wounded and prisoners.Since then March 30 is Land Day for the Palestinians. On this day, they honor the memory of the victims but also celebrate the date on...

The World Water Day is celebrated annually since 1993, under initiative of the United Nations, aiming to draw attention to the importance of drinking water and the need for sustainable management of water resources.In many countries, appeals are made to the rational use of resources made available to their inhabitants. But in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the population has a more pressing problem: pure and simple access to drinking water for daily consumption.The United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People, held in Cairo on 6 and 7 February, reached these conclusions:- Palestinians have access to only 10% of the capacity of the water system of the West Bank, while Israel has complete control over the aquifers of the region;- Israel has continuously, over-exploited water causing the depletion of aquifers, and then selling it back to the Palestinians;- Half of the Palestinian wells dried up in the last two decades;- The Israelis consume seven times more water...

Twenty-one dead and dozens injured is the possible balance of another Israeli military offensive against the suffering Palestinian population of Gaza. The sequence of bombings started last Friday has sown a trail of death and destruction in several villages and towns of the occupied region. Men, women or children, schools and other civilian infrastructure, nothing has been spared.Although not surprising, the brutality of the Israeli army is even more striking since the current bombing campaign on the Palestinian population was triggered in a totally preposterous way and without anything warranted. In fact, it only raises the level of violence and oppression that marks the daily lives of the Palestinian people under Israeli continued occupation.In the current context in the Middle East, with the exacerbation of internal conflicts and the proliferation of external interference and warmongering plans for new invasions, the Israeli military offensive seems geared to cause an escalation of...