Press Releases
Despite the Israeli genocidal war on the Gaza Strip and severe suppression and restrictions in the West Bank, as well as the suppression of international solidarity movement and activists by western states supporting Israel, BADIL Resource Center succeeded in holding its 5th Annual International Mobilization Course from 22 to 31 July 2023, which gathered 14 people from around the world.
The aim of the course is to strengthen international mobilization by enhancing participants’ knowledge and advocacy skills while giving them the opportunity to gain an in-depth understanding of the Israeli colonial-apartheid reality in Palestine.
During the 10-day period, participants are provided with legal analysis, workshops and lectures to understand the situation theoretically from an international law perspective, as well as witness it practically through on-the-ground testimonies and field visits.
Through lectures and workshops, founded upon its legal analysis, BADIL presented Israel’s 76 years of colonial-apartheid regime perpetuated by a system of domination and oppression based on three pillars: forcible transfer, colonization and apartheid. With over ten months of the Israeli genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, BADIL’s course also addressed Israel’s use of forced displacement as an act of genocide, and suppression of Palestinian resistance as an ongoing mechanism to deny the Palestinian people’s rights to self-determination and refugees return. BADIL also explained its rigorous rights-based decolonization framework that aims to bring the Ongoing Nakba to an end, and provides a solution for a just lasting peace.
The accuracy of BADIL’s analysis was evidenced through field visits across Mandatory Palestine, showing the varying degrees and mechanisms of ongoing forced displacement, colonization, apartheid, as well as suppression of Palestinian resistance. The field visits’ locations included Aida, Dheisheh and Balata Refugee Camps, Al Walaja, Jerusalem, the Old City of Hebron, Haifa, Nazareth, and many others.
Testimonies were heard from descendants of Al Tantura massacre’s survivors, Palestinian youth with Israeli citizenship experiencing deliberate erasure of Palestinian identity and Israelization, the challenges faced by the fishermen of Jisr Al Zarqa, Palestinians facing the Israeli genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, and detainees who experienced administrative detention and torture inside Isareli detention centers and were released lately, among many others.
The International Mobilization Course is an annual project within BADIL’s international advocacy program targeting activists, lawyers, scholars, and human rights defenders abroad working in solidarity for Palestinian inalienable rights. Through this course, BADIL relies heavily on its partnerships and relationships with Palestinian civil society - both community-based organizations and individuals. We would like to thank all the Palestinians that provided interventions for the course for your time, support and resilience.