Two years have passed since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 – an attack that caused deep human suffering. The deliberate targeting of civilians is indefensible. But Israel’s response has gone far beyond any notion of defence. What began as a military retaliation has become a campaign of annihilation – a genocide against the Palestinian people.

Under the guise of “security,” Israel has razed Gaza to the ground, displaced millions, and cut off food, water, and medicine to an entire population. Hospitals, schools, and refugee camps have been bombed repeatedly. The intent is clear: to make Gaza uninhabitable, and to extinguish what remains of Palestinian self-determination.

Europe’s complicity in genocide

Far from holding Israel to account, Europe has enabled its crimes. EU member states continue to trade arms, issue war bonds, and provide diplomatic cover for a state found by the International Court of Justice to be in violation of international law and ordered to withdraw from occupied territories.

By allowing the sale of Israeli war bonds, countries like Luxembourg are directly financing the machinery of occupation and apartheid. DiEM25’s campaign to reverse Luxembourg’s approval of these bonds is part of our broader effort to expose and end this complicity.

DiEM25 in action for Palestine

Over the past two years, DiEM25 and our political arms, the MERA25 parties, have taken decisive action. More recently, we have ramped up that fight:

• Breaking the blockade: DiEM25 members joined the Global Sumud Flotilla, a humanitarian mission to deliver aid to Gaza by sea. The flotilla’s ships were violently intercepted in international waters, and crew members – including Progressive International co-General Coordinator David Adler – were abducted by Israeli forces. Their courage shone a light on Israel’s illegal siege and inspired new missions to follow.
• Mobilising across Europe: From the streets of Stockholm to Athens, DiEM25 and MERA25 have marched, rallied, and spoken out. At Odenplan in Stockholm, MERA25 Sweden’s spokesperson Marc Wihlstrand demanded the release of detained activists and condemned Sweden’s silence in the face of genocide.
• Speaking truth to power: DiEM25 co-founder Yanis Varoufakis has denounced the so-called Trump-Netanyahu plan – a project to annex what remains of Palestine under US-Israeli control, “a mirror of the sickness in our own societies.”
• Standing with international law: DiEM25 has echoed the findings of the UN Commission of Inquiry and the International Criminal Court, both of which have identified evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The struggle continues

What we are witnessing is not a war between equals. It is the culmination of decades of occupation, displacement, and dehumanisation – a settler-colonial project reaching its most violent stage.

Europe cannot remain “neutral.” Every shipment of arms, every financial approval, every diplomatic excuse tightens the noose around Gaza.

DiEM25 calls on citizens, unions, and movements across Europe to escalate the pressure: through protest, boycott, divestment, and direct political action. The siege must end. The blockade must fall. And Palestine must live free – from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

Genocide is not self-defence.

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