The Time to Act Is Now!

Resolution adopted by ILN Feb. 3, 2024:
The Time to Act Is Now!
The Israeli government’s attack on Gaza is a threat to the security and lives of all humanity.
We call on non-governmental organizations, peace groups, trade unions and popular organizations for all types to unite in a series of peaceful, escalating global Days of Action that disrupt the war machine that is feeding the war in Gaza and wars elsewhere. Armaments can’t be manufactured or transported without the actions of millions of people worldwide. Actions of millions of people can therefore stop the production and distribution of armaments. Only a systematic, globally coordinated campaign that stops arms productions and transportation at a growing number of sites, week-by-week and month-by-month, an escalating unity-in-action of people worldwide, can convince governments to stop the supply of ammunition to Israel that makes this war possible.
We call for the first of these Days of Action to take place on (date TBA) and for an online conference of mass organizations on (date TBA) to plan future days.
The people of Gaza are running out of time. The deliberate denial of essential food, water, medicine and fuel to the entire Gaza population, combined with the systematic destruction by intense bombing of housing, water supply, electricity and other vital infrastructure, has put Gazans on the verge of mass death by famine and epidemics. More than 4% of the entire population has been killed or wounded in the last four months.
The Government of South Africa’s accusations of genocide against the Israeli government in the International Court of Justice have abundantly documented the crimes committed and the urgent need to stop them, a need the Court has recognized in its orders to the Israeli government.
Not only are the lives of 2.3 million Gazans under imminent threat, but so are those of the rest of humanity. Most immediately, a population as starved as that of Gaza, concentrated in a tiny area without sanitation or medical services, is the most dangerous breeding ground imaginable for a new pandemic that could break out at any moment and spread far beyond Gaza, indeed to the entire world.
The war in Gaza is by far the most immediate threat in terms of lives lost and the intensity of the assault, which was not been matched anywhere in the past half-century. But it is a part of a global spread of war in Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar and elsewhere. Not only is this growing warfare destroying tens of thousands of lives and untold vital infrastructure and productive resources. It is diverting over two trillion dollars a year from the provision of housing, education, health services, transportation and other vital services to the worlds’ population, contributing to increasingly widespread austerity.
Hundreds of nongovernmental organizations, trade unions, peace groups and millions of people in demonstrations around the world have demanded an immediate end to the intolerable attack on Gaza, including
an immediate end to the supplies of arms and ammunition to the government of Israel,
• an immediate, unlimited cease fire,
• the immediate provision of unlimited supplies to the people of Gaza both for relief and for reconstruction of shattered infrastructure,
• a setting up of a supply corridor by sea which can’t be interrupted or controlled by the combatants, and
• an immediate withdrawal of Israeli armed forces to within Israel’s internationally recognized borders.
Indeed, the United Nations General Assembly has supported these urgent steps. But words alone are not enough. It is time to move to action. The governments of the world have the capacity to impose a ceasefire by cutting off the supply of arms and to set up a reliable supply line to Gaza. They have not done so. Only mass popular action can ensure that they do.
The security and very survival of millions, not only in Gaza but worldwide, is at stake. We must act now.