KARACHI, Jan 10: The streets of downtown Karachi reverberated on Saturday with slogans condemning Israeli brutalities in the Gaza Strip and the international community’s double standards, especially those of the United States, which have already claimed hundreds of innocent Palestinian lives in the besieged territory.

A large number of peace and human rights activists, political party leaders, trade union leaders, lawyers, doctors, journalists, show-business personalities, students and teachers of all genders and age groups, carrying Palestinian flags and banners and placards condemning Israeli brutalities and the US’s alleged abetment in the crime, marched from the Karachi Press Club to Regal Chowk, Empress Market and back to the KPC.

Throughout the rally, whose participants also marched on Abdullah Haroon Road and Zaibunnisa Street, slogans were raised against Israel and the US. Slogans such as “Palestine will be Israel’s and America’s graveyard”, “America ka jo yaar hai, ghaddar hai; jo biknay ko tayyar hai, ghaddar hai”, were raised. The participants of the rally were demanding that Israel’s aggression against Gaza must stop immediately, its occupation of Palestine must come to an immediate end and Israel should be declared a terrorist state.

The participants also torched an Israeli flag and came hard on US President George W. Bush for “abetting the Israeli war crimes against the Palestinians”.

In a declaration issued at the end of the rally by Iqbal Haider of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and Fahimuzzaman on behalf of the Citizens Against Zionist Aggression, which had organized the march, the participants declared that “We join the civilized and peace-loving people across the world in condemning the savagery let loose by the Israeli army against the civilian population of Gaza.

“Equally condemnable,” they said, “is the criminal support it gets from its imperialist patrons, particularly the neo-con lobby in the United States. No less appalling and deplorable is the silence so studiously maintained by the United Nations as well as the so-called leadership of the Muslim world, including the government of Pakistan. It seems they are all part of a sinister conspiracy to exterminate the entire population of Palestine and erase its very existence”.

The declaration maintained that “what was happening in Gaza today was a ghastly chapter in the Israeli army’s long history of bloodbath that began with its illegitimate birth in 1948.”

“Since then hundreds of thousands of Palestinian people, mostly women and children, have been massacred, forcibly evicted from their homes and cold-bloodedly butchered in refugee camps.”

It said: “It is now abundantly clear that Israel with its present policies of savagery has become an immediate and abiding threat to humanity and peace, not only in the Middle East but the entire world. And there is no possibility or hope that it can be persuaded to change its course as long as it enjoys the unstinted support of US imperialism that has short- and long-term interests it represents and guards in the oil-rich Middle East”.The participants of the rally resolved that in view of the “persistently belligerent conduct of Israel over the past 50 years together with its genocidal activities, Israel more than meets all the conditions to be declared a rogue state by the world community”.

They also demanded that the territory now comprising Israel be placed under direct international control. They also demanded that the Palestinians must have an independent state of their own, and appealed to the people to boycott those who supported Israel through their businesses.

They also demanded that the government of Pakistan take a strong stand against imperialist powers, reflecting sentiments of the people.

It was pointed out that at least 700 Palestinians had been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military. Almost one-third of the Palestinian victims are children. Over 3,100 have been wounded so far. It was noted that schools had been bombed, hospitals destroyed and those health facilities still functioning were now facing an acute shortage of medicines.

The participants also condemned the Israeli authorities for stopping medical volunteers from entering Gaza. According to reports, food supplies are drastically low as the blockade on humanitarian aid continues. Israel says that it is providing three-hour windows for aid to be let into Gaza.