We condemn the attacks by Hamas deliberately targeting Israeli civilians for killing and kidnapping. And we condemn Israel’s aerial bombardment of Gaza, which is again killing large numbers of Palestinian civilians. We grieve for all the lives lost and for all those injured and traumatized. The root of the current violence is the oppression and abuses suffered daily by Palestinian people as a whole under decades of cruel Israeli occupation and expansionism. Leading human rights groups -- from Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch to Israel’s B'Tselem -- have concluded that Israel’s occupation policies amount to a form of apartheid. Until Israel’s military occupation is ended, these cycles of terror and war and trauma will repeat.

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