The devastating loss of Palestinian and Israeli lives since October 7, 2023, has left millions around the world grief-stricken, terrified, confused, and angry. We mourn with the families, loved ones, and grieving communities, and with those who have suffered the nearly century-long genocidal occupation of Palestine by the right-wing Israeli government. To protect the living, we demand an immediate ceasefire and end to the U.S.–backed occupation of Palestine. 

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee described Israeli Zionism as an imperial project upheld by “white western colonial governments.” On the shoulders of our radical ancestors, we remain ever-vigilant in our solidarity with Palestine, knowing the fates and futures of our people are linked. For the Black liberation movement to succeed, the Palestinian freedom struggle must survive. 

Like Black freedom seekers before us, the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) remains unequivocally committed to a decolonized and self-determined Palestine. We are unyielding in our demand for an immediate end to Israel’s lethal settler-colonial project and its enforced displacement, human-rights desecration, cultural erasure, and outright genocidal agenda against the Palestinian people and spirit. The fight for Palestinian sovereignty isn’t a choice; it’s a mandate for universal human rights.

Following the 24-hour evacuation ultimatum rendered by the Israeli government and the ongoing threat of a full ground assault on Gaza, we condemn the collective punishment by Israel in defiance of international law and with the aid of the U.S. and others who have routinely broken human-rights laws. The war crimes of the Israeli state have completely obstructed food, fuel, water, and medical supplies from reaching Gaza, all while bombing families inside hospitals, ambulances, and safe-zone escape routes. As the Palestinian people continue to endure this nightmare, trapped and awaiting their liberation or demise, we demand an end to this siege. 

For people of African descent in the global diaspora, the scars of colonization, occupation, and racial terror are etched deep. However, it is not our suffering that binds us to the Palestinian people, but the spirit and will to remain resilient in the face of brutality. Our history compels us to act. We will not remain silent in the face of this full military assault against Gaza. Hear us now: End the occupation of Palestine, and the violent harassment and blacklisting of allies who believe that Palestinians deserve true freedom. 

As the authoritarian Israeli apartheid regime threatens the occupied civilian population of Gaza and deploys the violence and velocity of settler colonialism to devastating effect, we must all do more than pledge solidarity with Palestine—we must demonstrate it in the streets, in the halls of power, on every platform, in every way. 

The answer is simple: Divest from Israel’s relentless colonial aggression, and maintain solidarity with Palestinian survivors of state violence, to ensure peace and dignity for everyone—or allow genocide. We commit, in both principle and practice, to resisting the genocide of Gaza. Freedom-bound, we will make it through the night. Here comes the sun.