Palestine: Unity of land, people and struggle 

This statement of unity was drafted by committed Palestinians in Palestine and in exile who, like many others, see the attempts to further fragment Palestinians and ensnare them in another decades-long process, posing a grave danger to their national liberation that must be clearly and ethically confronted. This statement was also published in Arabic in Mada Masr here.

Our people in Gaza,

Today, we salute you and all our brave martyrs. You are the heart of our struggle. And that is why our adversary tries to break your spirit. We will never forget your sacrifices and never allow the Zionists to succeed.

Our brothers and sisters in Gaza, we have heard your demands. We are doing every possible thing to end the bloodshed, and we must do more. We are fighting to stop the genocidal war on you, to call for sanctions, to lift the blockade that denies you life, to support your return to your homes, to confront complicity with the regime and to resist its murderous impulses. We are mobilizing to reject a return to the normalized massacres and suffocating siege against our people, which were the status quo before this genocide began.

Palestinians everywhere,

We have now entered the century of our liberation, and the occupying power is weaker than ever before. This is the moment in which we, the Palestinian people, must collectively rise to seize our victory and free ourselves. Look at Gaza. She is showing us the way, reclaiming our agency and advancing the struggle for a better life, not only in Palestine but beyond it as well.

The colonial Zionist regime ruling us, Israel, is continuing its relentless attempts to erase our presence from our homeland, to annihilate Gaza, to dispossess our residents in the West Bank, and to imprison, torture and kill our people throughout historic Palestine.

As long as we collectively continue to resist, we will emerge victorious.

After more than a century of Zionist colonization and 75 years of an ongoing Nakba and apartheid, we, the Palestinian people, not only remain here, asserting our identity and resisting the colonization of the entirety of our land, which we will never abandon, but we are also getting stronger, with growing international solidarity uniting behind our just cause.

With each generation, we renew our commitment, while the crisis in the Zionist regime grows and intensifies.

Our great people, do not forget your victories.

In 2021, we once again asserted that our story of justice cannot be erased, no matter how cruel and brutal Israeli oppression may be. In our Unity Intifada, we rose with dignity and manifested a simple truth: that Palestinians are one people, that we belong to the whole of Palestine and it belongs to us, and that colonial efforts to dispel, fragment and murder us will fail, just like they failed in every other national liberation struggle.

In 2023, we showed that we are capable of surprising our occupiers, undermining their assumption of invincibility and shattering their delusions that they can maintain their colonial rule with no cost.

Today, Gaza is on the frontlines, but she is not alone. Palestinians are leading our struggle in the streets, among olive groves, underground, in international courts, in prisons, in refugee camps, and in every challenge to the Zionist regime throughout colonized Palestine and in forced exile. Yes, there is paralysis and fear. Our people are facing authoritarian powers attempting to silence us, and in Palestine, the criminal regime and its operators have stoked our fear, arrested and tortured thousands, and killed our comrades, trying to break our will.

But still, our voices are louder and stronger than ever, unleashing the breadth of our passion across the globe. We are rising against the genocide that this colonial regime and its supporters, primarily the United States, are hysterically unleashing on our families in Gaza. Our international allies, foremost among them South Africa, understand that the tides are turning, that this is the time to challenge Western hegemony, and are fighting alongside us for a more just global order.

Meanwhile, security forces serve Israeli interests instead of protecting our people. Undemocratic Arab regimes maintain normalization and complicity. And the confused political class in the West Bank and corrupt and illegitimate Palestinian “rulers and technocrats” busy themselves with new ways to diminish our just cause and give away our rights. They will try to placate and manipulate us into accepting illusions of statehood, repackaging the apartheid regime under the guise of “a two-state solution.” They will talk about a “day after” in Gaza, allegedly to aid our people.

Make no mistake. The offers of a Palestinian state are an illusion. There will never be Palestinian sovereignty without dismantling Zionism. Our people will not be aided without justice. These offers are nothing but a continuation of the immoral, criminal and racist apartheid regime. The partition of Palestine is nothing but a legitimation of Zionism, a betrayal of our people and the final completion of the Nakba.

Despite the moral and political corruption of the so-called leadership, we, the Palestinian people, continue to affirm that our liberation struggle is for a future of freedom and return, justice and dignity between the river and the sea. Our liberation can only be achieved through a unity of struggle, built upon a unity of people and a unity of land.

We therefore call on all 14 million Palestinians everywhere — in Palestine and on its perimeter, in exile distant and near — to unite in action. There can be no “solution” without our refugees returning to their eternal home, which still yearns for them. There can be no day after where Gaza remains under blockade, its people perishing of hunger. There can be no peace without justice. We could never coexist with Zionist colonialism, which is a crime against humanity.

People of Palestine,

Palestine has never been and will never be partitioned. We already have our homeland. Palestine is here, where she has always been. We want it to be free and prosperous. We want to reconstitute our people, to welcome our refugees back to their towns, to unify and heal our land, and to build our future together. Our liberated Palestine, with its refugees returned, will be a beacon for the whole of humanity, welcoming all those who want to live here in equality and pursuing freedom and justice everywhere.

Our cause is a just cause. We call on all people of conscience to join us.

We call for a representative, competent and revolutionary leadership that speaks to our national liberation and represents the political consensus of our people. We must end all and any form of collaboration with the oppressor. 

United, we will not rest until we dismantle the systems of domination, subjugation and apartheid in all their forms, ending the colonization of our land and people once and for all.

And our struggle will not end until Gaza is redeemed, until Palestine is free.

Palestine is the unity of land, the unity of people and the unity of struggle.

Long Live a United Palestine, Long Live the Palestinian People.