GreenLatinos Distraught Over Violence in The Middle East, Mourns Families Caught in Crossfire

WASHINGTON — On Saturday, October 7th, people in the United States woke to discover that a deadly attack near the Gaza-Israel border, had killed hundreds of people. As of Monday, October 16th, the death toll is more than 2,600 people, with another 10,000 injured. Now, the threat of war is putting hundreds of thousands of innocent lives in danger.

Saddened by this disturbing news, GreenLatinos Founding President and CEO Mark Magaña, released the following statement:

"Today, our hearts mourn for the havoc and devastation caused in Gaza and Israel. We’re distraught about the fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters all caught in the chaos of war. We’re sickened to hear about children caught in an armed conflict with no end in sight. To make matters worse, the toxic effects of bombing and destruction caused by warfare harm innocent people's lives and poison land, air, and water, making it unsafe to live on or cultivate.

As an organization committed to supporting and uplifting familia, communities, and nuestra gente, we’re grieving for those innocent people caught in the crossfire of a tragic and complex issue. As this struggle unfolds, we plead with the United States government to support bilateral efforts to quickly restore peace to the region and protect every innocent person caught in the middle of this conflict.

As the world's most powerful nation, we must ensure that we communicate that Israel’s response in Gaza must be carried out according to international law and take all due measures to limit harm to innocent civilians. We also have a duty to help quickly restore the delivery of food, water, fuel, electricity, and other life-saving necessities to Gaza to ensure that innocent civilians have the basics needed for survival.

Further, to ensure peace is restored in the region, we must collaborate with regional partners to establish a humanitarian corridor to deliver life-saving necessities and allow Palestinian civilians and foreign nationals, including U.S. citizens, to seek haven outside of Gaza.

Additionally, our nation’s government must publicly discourage any hate crimes and backlash against any American— Jews and Muslims—including by explicitly communicating to the American people that Hamas is not the Palestinian people and the Palestinian people are not Hamas.

Finally, we must ensure that supplemental funding requests to Congress include humanitarian assistance for both Palestinians in Gaza and Israelis.

As news of this conflict continues to filter in, we keep the innocent families involved in our hearts. All innocent people must have their human rights respected and protected.”

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GreenLatinos (NOTE: GreenLatinos is ONE WORD) is an active comunidad of Latino/a/e leaders, emboldened by the power and wisdom of our culture, united to demand equity and dismantle racism, resourced to win our environmental, conservation, and climate justice battles, and driven to secure our political, economic, cultural, and environmental liberation.