News

MPPM - Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and Peace in the Middle East condemns the raid and closure by the Israeli occupation forces of the offices of several Palestinian civil society organizations and criticizes the inertia of the international community — including the Portuguese government — in demanding Israel to reverse the designation of six of the organizations as "terrorist organizations".

In the early hours of Thursday, August 18, the Israeli army invaded and closed the offices of seven Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank. The organizations' offices were ransacked and their equipment confiscated. The doors were sealed and a military order was posted declaring the organization "closed by force in the name of security in the region and to combat the infrastructure of terrorism".

The six organizations designated "illegal" by Israel are: Addameer – Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Al-Haq –...

The MPPM - Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and for Peace in the Middle East - denounces and strongly condemns the new aggressive escalation of Israel against the Palestinian people, and in particular against Gaza.

Following military moves and provocations of various kinds that had been taking place in the last few days, the State of Israel has again bombed the Gaza Strip on a large scale since last Friday, 5 August.

On the morning of Sunday 7 August, less than 48 hours after the beginning of this wave of attacks, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported 31 deaths, including six children and four women. There were also more than 265 wounded. Among the many civilian facilities hit by the Israeli shelling was Al-Quds University in northern Gaza. Also the Jabalia refugee camp was bombed on Saturday night resulting in the death of several children.

The Israeli leaders have already assumed that they intend to extend this new aggression for at least a week. Some Israeli...

The Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was evoked in the public session with which the MPPM - Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and for Peace in the Middle East - marked the Nakba Day, on May 24, at Casa do Alentejo, in Lisbon.

António Delgado Fonseca, a military participant in the 1974 Carnation Revolution,chaired the meeting and recalled that the Palestinian people continue to face daily aggressions, expropriations and expulsions that continue since the ethnic cleansing that accompanied the creation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948.

Journalist José Goulão denounced the contrast between the attention given to certain conflicts, namely the war in Ukraine, and the silence covering the violent occupation of Palestine by Israel.

Giulia Daniele, Researcher at ISCTE's Center for International Studies, focused on an extensively sustained characterization of Israel as an "apartheid state".

Hindi Mesleh, a Palestinian living in Portugal denounced that the Nakba did not...

Today marks the 74th anniversary of the Nakba - the catastrophe that accompanied the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 and resulted in the violent expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes, villages and towns to make way for newly arrived Zionist settlers.

Almost three quarters of a century later, and despite international recognition of the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause and the struggle of its people for their inalienable rights, the anniversary of the Nakba in 2022 remains marked by the brutal reality of Israeli occupation and repression of the Palestinian people, continued ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian population, and violations of international law by the State of Israel with persistent acts of war against neighbouring countries.

In a report published on April 15, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor documents the killing by Israeli forces, since the beginning of 2022, of 47 Palestinians, including eight minors and two women, in...

On May 1st, CGTP-IN, the largest labour confederation in Portugal, organizes marches and concentrations all over the country.

MPPM joined the celebrations in Lisbon participating in the march between Praça Martim Moniz and Alameda Afonso Henriques.

At Alameda MPPM had a booth where we had a display highlighting the effects of the Zionist occupation and where we made available Palestinian products and informative leaflets.

As every year, on the 25th April, thousands of people marched down Avenida da Liberdade (Liberty Avenue), in Lisbon, to mark the anniversary of the Carnation Revolution which, in 1974, returned to the Portuguese people the freedom that had been seized, for 48 years, by the fascist dictatorship.

As every year, MPPM joined the march to remind everybody that, as Nelson Mandela had put it, the freedom we were celebrating was incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.

And our cry Palestina Vencerá! (Palestine Will Win!) was echoed by those participating in the march and by the many more that occupied the sidewalks all along the avenue.

Today is Land Day in Palestine. On this day in 1976, the Israeli army brutally suppressed a wave of protests, including a general strike, by the Palestinian population against a plan to expropriate land between the villages of Sakhnin and Arraba, north of Nazareth, within the borders of Palestine occupied by the State of Israel in 1948. As a result, six Palestinians were killed, about a hundred were injured, and an undetermined number of many hundreds were arrested.

Forty-six years later, the Palestinian people face an extensive and renewed campaign of expropriations, with particular focus on East Jerusalem, prolonging the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people concomitant with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. This campaign is accompanied by the announcement of the construction of new settlements and the intensification of the processes of enlargement of those already in existence.

In parallel, the violent action of settler groups intensifies, with the cover and support...

On this International Women's Day 2022, MPPM pays tribute to women around the world and their struggle for peace, equality, freedom, justice and the elimination of all forms of discrimination. A fight they have fought in the past and continue to fight today, sometimes discreetly and simply, sometimes at great risk.

Special tribute to women who, as a result of wars and other aggressions, are deprived of their freedom, forced to leave their homes, subjected to physical and psychological abuse, or lose their lives.

Constant homage to Palestinian women, who live on a daily basis a system of occupation, colonization, and apartheid with its procession of violence and discrimination.

Of the approximately 4500 Palestinian prisoners, in February 2022, 34 were women and 180 children. Since 1967, some 10,000 women have been detained by Israeli occupation forces. Often the detainees, like other Palestinians, are subjected to mistreatment and torture. Beatings, insults, threats, body searches, forced...

Dear Mariza

You have an enormous talent that allows you to imprint a singular stamp on your singing. With talent comes natural public recognition. And public recognition means that millions of people follow your career and seek inspiration in your actions and words. This means, then, an added responsibility for the artist, for the fado singer.

Sophia left us these immortal verses: "We see, we hear and we read, we cannot ignore". That is the responsibility of all of us in times when so many drop their eyelids or look away.

We cannot ignore the hundreds of United Nations resolutions condemning Israel for its policy of occupation and violation of international law.

We cannot ignore positions such as that of Human Rights Watch, an international NGO based in New York, which has described the Israeli regime as apartheid.

We cannot ignore the inhuman way in which Israel is pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, who are now the largest refugee community in the world.

We cannot...

Answering to an appeal of twenty organizations, with MPPM (Portuguese Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and for Peace in the Middle East), CPPC (Portuguese Council for Peace and Cooperation) and CGTP-IN (General Confederation of Portuguese Workers) as the first promoters, hundreds of people gathered in Praça Luís de Camões, in Lisbon, to mark the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

Waving flags of Palestine or waving placards demanding the End of the Apartheid Wall, the End of the Occupation, Freedom for Palestinian Prisoners, or the Right to Return of Refugees, the demonstrators shouted their certainty that Palestine Will Win!

There was no lack of an international component, with posters like "Where Are You, EU?", "It Is Not About Being Anti-Semitic, It Is About Being Pro-Human Rights" or "Free Palestine, End Apartheid".

There were interventions from Eduardo Lima, for CPPC, João Coelho, for CGTP-IN, and Carlos Almeida, for MPPM.

This is the text of...