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Palestinian campaigners call for Ramadan boycott of Israeli goods

PALESTINE solidarity activists appealed to supporters today to keep up their boycott of Israeli goods during Ramadan, urging them not to break their daily fast with dates exported by the apartheid regime.

The Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network wished a happy Ramadan to all prisoners marking the Muslim holy month inside Israeli jails and said that it hoped for the future liberation of Palestine.

Last year was the worst on record, with some 4,400 Palestinians incarcerated by Israel, including 41 women, 160 children and 700 prisoners with health issues, according to the Palestinian Authority’s prisoner affairs commission.

“Thousands of Palestinian prisoners are marking Ramadan inside Israeli prisons, deprived of their families and loved ones, while their communities and loved ones are kept from these strugglers for freedom by the iron bars and prison walls of the occupation,” Samidoun said in a statement.

“Millions more Palestinians mark the holiday facing home demolitions, land confiscation, systematic racism and apartheid, a killer siege, extrajudicial executions, military occupation and settler colonialism.”

While the oppression of the Palestinians continues unabated, with no sign of a policy shift on the occupied territories by the new US administration of President Joe Biden, Israel continues to exploit their land for profit.

Samidoun highlighted the Israeli expropriation of Palestinian-grown dates – a traditional snack eaten at breakfast during Ramadan – which Tel Aviv is marketing as products of Israel and selling worldwide.

Some 80 per cent of the dates grown on illegal Israeli settlements are sold abroad, the group said, with Tel Aviv raking in some $181 million (£131m) in 2017 as the world’s third-largest date exporter.

Samidoun said that Israeli corporations exploit not only the land but also Palestinian labour, with those who farm the dates and on whose land they are grown denied any of the profits by the occupying forces.

“Israeli settlement date producers often hire Palestinian child labour to produce and package dates in backbreaking, hazardous conditions,” the group said.

“For workers of all ages, they often must stay 12 metres above the ground in the date-palm trees throughout the day, denied even toilet breaks.”

Samidoun, which was designated a terrorist organisation by Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz earlier this year, called for the ongoing boycott of Israeli goods, particularly dates, to continue during the holy month.

“This Ramadan, be sure to not break your fast with apartheid,” it said. “Boycott Israeli dates! Stand with the Palestinian people!”

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