Gila Svirsky

“We, veteran and active pilots alike, who served and still serve the state of Israel for long weeks every year, are opposed to carrying out attack orders of the type the state of Israel has been conducting in the territories. These actions are illegal and immoral, and are a direct result of the ongoing occupation which is corrupting all of Israeli society.” An excerpt from a letter of refusal to serve penned by over a dozen Israeli Air Force pilots, which will stun Israeli newspaper readers this morning.

In what may have been one of the most moving moments of protest in Israel, hundreds of women and men wearing stark black lay down outside the Cinematheque in Tel-Aviv, completely covering the large plaza in front of the building.

“They had to do 16 houses by sundown, and they couldn’t start until the men who live in them had gone off to work in the morning. But those machines are tireless, and by the end of the day, you could find 16 families sitting on heaps of rubble, weeping and cursing. Children, too.” Gila Svirsky of the Coalition of Women for Peace reports on another average day in Occupied Palestine.