Wirral communities call for ceasefire in Gaza.
“I am Islam Alashi. I was married in this beautiful Birkenhead town hall with my wonderful husband. We live with our two gorgeous kids in Wallasey. I find myself thousands of miles away from my sister Amira, my niece and my 70 years old father. They are living in a tent in Rafah right now, hoping Israeli troops don’t enter the city and kill more people. My grandparents are from Beri Sabah. I grew up in Gaza.
Last September I went to visit my ill dad and I became trapped in the war. Since October 7th I experienced the worst days in my life. Being so far from my kids, seeing death many times in front of my eyes, feeling scared and terrified, being made homeless and forced to flee, taking only what we can carry. My home and the neighbourhood in which we lived was destroyed by F35 warplanes. Me and my family were displaced four times in three months. I finally left Gaza on the 3rd of December. I can’t forget the hard moment when I was forced to leave Gaza without my family, leaving them in the war with no help, with no support from anybody. I was crying when I saw the lights in Egypt for the first time in the last 60 days.
When I moved to the hotel, there was water in the tap, light in the room, clean water in clean bottles to drink and a bed to sleep on. I thought that I finally came out to heaven. I remember when we were forced to move. I have witnessed death countless times. Yet we were able to make it to Rafah miraculously. We walked south for 13 kilometres on foot on the hot sand with thousands of kids and elderly people.
During this forced evacuation, I saw by my own eyes kids being killed by soldiers, forcing their mothers to continue walking to the south and not to look behind. That was the first time I saw Israeli soldiers standing in our land holding weapons and killing civilian people with no mercy. I will never forget it. Over 30,000 people have been killed. Many more are starving to death. Even the International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to stop killing Palestinians in Gaza.
I am therefore asking all elected councillors, every single one of you, please vote for an immediate, bilateral, long-lasting ceasefire in Gaza. Please help my family survive this war. Thank you.”
“I’m going to continue the discussion of Gaza and I want to pay tribute to the speakers who’ve gone before me. Attacks on healthcare sites and staff are war crimes.
The World Health Organisation has identified 406 health attacks in Gaza since 7 October, killing 682 people, affecting 99 health facilities with damage to 30 hospitals and 54 ambulances. Investments by the Merseyside Pension Fund contribute to such attacks. On 3 November, an Israeli airstrike on an ambulance convoy near Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City killed 15 people and wounded 60 others. The convoy was transporting critically wounded patients to the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. Shelling on the coastal road forced it to return. About one kilometre from Al Shifa, a missile directly targeted a Health Ministry ambulance.
Other vehicles continued until a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance was struck by an Israeli missile near the hospital gate. The main Israeli attack aircraft operating in Gaza are F35 and F16 jets from Lockheed Martin. The Merseyside Pension Fund invests £292,000 in Lockheed Martin and at least £39.9 million in 21 arms firms supplying Israel, of which 16 companies supply the F35 with components, missiles and bombs. These investments include BAE Systems (£8.9 million), Honeywell (£3 million), RTX or Raytheon (£629,000), Textron (£757,000), Teledyne Technologies (£207,000).
On 9 February, Israeli tanks fired on Al Quds hospital in Gaza City. Quote: “The Israeli army deliberately targeted the Palestinian Red Crescent Society’s headquarters and vehicles to put them out of service,” unquote. A Red Crescent spokesman said today tanks surrounding Al Shifa hospital, missiles and shells hit the building and patients on life support in the intensive care unit died today as electricity supplies were cut before the raid. The main tanks deployed in Gaza and poised to invade Rafah are the Merkava Mark 4. General Dynamics supplies the engine and Caterpillar supplies the track system. The MPF invests in both. When the MPF invests contributions of local government workers and council taxpayers to fund the pension scheme, some of their money ends up financing attacks on hospitals, ambulances, patients and health workers.
These war crimes continue despite the International Court of Justice instructing Israel to prevent genocide acts in Gaza. Councillors can divest. Growing numbers of trade unionists and members of the public are calling on you to do so now.”
“I’m Piara. I’m an outreach and support worker in the community. I was the Labour candidate for Birkenhead and Tranmere in the local elections last year and I had great hopes of working with the local Labour team.
But I had to step away because of Labour’s stance on Gaza. It became obvious quite quickly that they weren’t listening to the membership.I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people of South Africa, Ireland, Yemen, all the other countries and the British public who have been calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the illegal and brutal occupation in Palestine. I am embarrassed that our British government, having created the situation 100 years ago, are now digging their heels in and denying that a genocide is taking place.
Since this is apparent to the majority of the public and experts on the subject, like Ilan Pappé and Norman Finkelstein, I dare say the profits from arms sales is clouding their judgement. A clear case of ethnic cleansing and genocide seems oh so complicated to their minds. Their contempt for the life of Palestinians is chilling. Their disregard for the British people is beyond belief. This is why some people can’t even believe it. It defies any logic or rationale.
Why would our politicians choose to use our taxes to fund illegal occupations and genocides, as well as the bullies of the world? It’s always been a bit easy come, easy go for them because they’ve been allowed to get away with it. Because building homes and hospitals here would require putting people before profits because paying decent wages would cut into their profit margins. Their decisions have been reckless on so many levels. And they’re only deceiving themselves if they think we’re falling for their rhetoric. Their actions are telling us all we need to know.
My request to everyone present here or who hears my message later. Like it or not, our fates are inextricably linked with the Palestinian people. Please call for an immediate bilateral ceasefire and an end to the occupation. Please take action to ensure humanitarian aid reaches the people as a matter of urgency. Please advocate for a just and lasting peace in the region. I’d just like to add. Thank you to Councillor Stuart for your statement.
The only thing I’d like to add to that is the resistance groups will have to lay down their weapons when the occupation ends. To expect them to do it before is asking them to surrender to an Israeli government who has been brazenly breaking international law and killing Palestinians indiscriminately. Please consider their position without prejudice. I say none of us are free until all of us are free.”
“I’m Rica Bird, proud to be a Wirral resident since 1975 and a beneficiary of Merseyside Local Government Pension Scheme. Retired from previous rural service. My question relates to Motion 4, listed under Agenda Item 7.
I’m a Jew, descended from refugees fleeing the antisemitic pogroms perpetrated throughout the former czarist regime mid 19th and early 20th century. My grandparents and their parents felt these attacks keenly as an existential threat similar to Palestinians in today’s Gaza. All recognisable features of a whole way of life in Stettin, Svalki and Bialystok were utterly destroyed. Amongst other few belongings, my grandma brought in this precious family treasure of no monetary value, but representing a priceless heritage. The aunts, uncles and cousins my family had to leave behind in Europe were slaughtered in the Holocaust of the mid 20th century.
Up to that time and since my parents, as thousands of other Jews, did not espouse Zionist ideology, rather, they were intensely committed to ensuring a better life here in England and for themselves and equally with neighbours, our family life reflected socialist, cooperative and internationalist values, along with 60% of the rest of the UK population. I am overwhelmed and appalled by the horrendous carnage in Gaza right now, and I earnestly hope members now understand when I shout loud and long that what Israel does is not in my name.
My question is taking into account the direct interest Wirral has as the agreed managing authority for the Merseyside Local Government pension scheme, when will the Wirral Group leaders write to the Prime Minister to make Wirral Council’s request to him to demand an immediate and bilateral ceasefire in Gaza? Thank you.”
“My name is Anne Litherland, I live in Wallasey. I’m retired and previously worked for Wirral. When I moved here, I transferred my pension from the Greater Manchester scheme to Merseyside Pension Scheme. I regret that now as I don’t want my pension invested in arms companies to bomb, kill and injure innocent men, women and children in Gaza and elsewhere.
Thousands of people in Wirral are also members of Merseyside Pension Fund and many, like me, trusted our fund to invest ethically, not in arms. As a Christian, I observed the season of Lent, a period of prayer, fasting and almsgiving leading to the remembrance of Christ’s passion and death on Good Friday and resurrection on Easter Sunday. Jesus was a Jew and a Palestinian born in Bethlehem. He fled through Gaza to live as a refugee in Egypt, returning through Gaza to grow up in Nazareth when it was safe to do so.
Next week is Holy Week when we recall how Jesus was judged, tortured and humiliated by Pilate and the Roman soldiers, as the Palestinians are today. I see him carrying an unbearable load in the cross as the people of Gaza are suffering unbearably. I hear the words of Jesus telling the women of Jerusalem not to weep for him, but for themselves and their children. We see the women of Jerusalem and the occupied Palestinian territories weeping for their losses today.
Julie McManus, as chair of the Pensions Committee, please will you support the call in the motion tonight for an immediate bilateral ceasefire in Gaza?”
“I would like to read a play from Noor, who’s a law student living in Gaza. Because I have no words to explain what’s going on in Gaza.
”I want to return to my home. I want to feel like a human deserving of life, truly deserving of the most basic human rights. This war has stripped me of every aspect of my humanity. I am a human. I swear. I feel just like you do. I desire a life like yours. A country, my family, a home. I want them all. I miss my home. The sense of it resting in bed. The morning sun would shine on my bed. The rain would streak down my window in winter. My siblings and I would watch TV in the living room, chatting while our mum cooked in the kitchen. I want my father to once again enter our home and call us all together. I want to tell him to remember to take his shoes off at the front door, something he always forgets to do.
Our home was a tranquil place and I longed for it. Inside, you could hear the sea. Our balcony was full of plants and flowers that grew lush. There are things I dream of. I want to return to this life I used to have to mend everything the war has destroyed. I need a home to feel like a human. A home is not a luxury, it’s a fundamental right. I no longer have a room to myself, a kitchen, a window. Not even a door.
I am 24 years old. I studied law for four years and trained for two years at the Palestine Centre for Human Rights. A week before the genocide started, I passed the bar examination. I was hoping to pursue a Master’s degree in International Human Law. Before the occupation destroyed my life, dreams and hopes, I watched the news, hoping that someone is working to end our suffering. Every day that passes kills a part of us. Despite all the blood, wounds, pain, all I want is my homeland and my home.
Who are these people to decide the worth of my life? Who are you to disrupt my peace and dreams? Stop this war before you kill our hope. Stop it and return us to our homes because we deserve a decent life. Or return us to our homes and kill us there, as I don’t want to die in a tent. As our representatives, I urge you, for the sake of Noor and for the people of Gaza, to put party politics aside and vote for the Green Party’s Ceasefire motion.” Thank you.”
“ I’m Jim McGinley, resident in Wirral since 1994, born in the Republic of Ireland, just a few miles from the border with the north of Ireland.
9,000 women and 13,000 children have been killed in Gaza since October 7th. The relentless killing of men, women and children must end. The withholding of food from starving people must end. The deprivation of essential medical supplies, the destruction of hospitals and targeting of ambulances, the cutting off of water and electricity must end. The systematic demolition of the infrastructure of civilised life must end. Only a sustained bilateral ceasefire can halt the mass atrocities and the unbearable suffering of the people of Gaza.
Calling for anything less, according to the head of Doctors Without Borders, is endorsing the current level of violence against the people. All the human rights and aid organisations say that without a long lasting ceasefire, it will be impossible to get the food and medical aid to those in critical need. 500 trucks a day were needed to meet the needs of the Gaza population before October 7 due to the 16-year-long blockade by Israel, which has crushed the Gaza economy and impoverished the people. On some days in February, the number of trucks getting in was in single figures and overall has been a fraction of what is required.
1.1 million people in Gaza face catastrophic hunger, according to the United Nations. Famine can still be avoided, but only again, in the words of the UN, if there is an immediate cessation of hostilities and a sustained supply of aid. Children have been dying from severe malnutrition. One in six of those under two are acutely malnourished. Families in the north have been eating grass and animal feed to stay alive. An immediate and long-lasting ceasefire is an absolute necessity to prevent this entirely man-made horror from worsening to unimaginable levels. The case for an immediate end to hostilities in human terms is unanswerable. So is it in political terms.
Peace is only possible through a negotiated settlement, as was achieved in the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland in 1998. A seemingly intractable conflict rooted in the injustice of centuries of colonial oppression, which in the 30 years leading to 1998 had killed 3,600 and wounded 47,000, the equivalent of 120,000 deaths and 1,600,000 injured if translated into UK population terms, was brought to an end through a democratic process in which all interested parties were involved, including those previously labelled terrorist.
Concerted international pressure on both sides played an essential role. Negotiations which recognise and address historic injustice are a prerequisite to a durable peace and can only begin with a lasting ceasefire. Please vote for Motion Four. Thank you.”
March, 2024