The Austin (TX) People’s Resolution was issued on May 30, 2024

The People’s Austin City Council Resolution

30 May 2024

WHEREAS, the City of Austin stands in solidarity with Palestine and especially the people of Gaza, who are facing a continued campaign of ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, and genocide by the Zionist state of Israel; and

WHEREAS, Gaza is known as “the world’s largest open-air prison” due to ongoing, unbearable inhumane living conditions imposed by Israel for the last 17 years, including a full air, land, and sea blockade, enclosure of its borders by concrete walls and barbed wire fences, and the strict prohibition of Palestinians from leaving and entering the territory freely; and

WHEREAS, collective punishment is a war crime under international law, and refers to a form of sanction imposed on persons or a group of persons in response to action taken by one of them or a member of the group; and

WHEREAS, the Zionist state of Israel is engaging in collective punishment against Palestinian civilians; and

WHEREAS, this collective punishment of the Palestinian civilians includes shutting off access to electricity, drinking water, food, fuel, and humanitarian aid; and

WHEREAS, the UN says approximately 2 million people in Gaza have entirely run out of drinking water and all medical care; and

WHEREAS, the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited under international humanitarian and criminal law, as is depriving civilians of objects indispensable to their survival; and

WHEREAS, the UN has declared that Northern Gaza is now in a “full blown famine”; and

WHEREAS, ethnic cleansing refers to the creation of an ethnically homogeneous geographic area through the elimination of unwanted ethnic groups by deportation, forcible displacement, or genocide; and

WHEREAS, Israel is now engaged in an ethnic cleansing campaign by explicitly requiring over two million Palestinians to leave Gaza immediately or risk being bombed in their homes and makeshift tents by the Israeli army; and

WHEREAS, 1.7 million Palestinians, making up 75% of Gaza’s population, are now internally displaced; and 1.3 million of those, including over 600,000 children, have  sheltered in Rafah, the Southernmost tip of Gaza; and

WHEREAS, the repeated targeting of the Rafah area in southern Gaza, explicitly designated as a safe zone by the Israeli military, is a war crime and includes the Israeli airstrikes on 26 May 2024 in the Tal as-Sultan area where 45 people, including 23 women, children and elderly, were killed instantly or burned alive inside their tents  in the attack along with  249 wounded; and

WHEREAS, Israeli settlements are violations of international law; and

WHEREAS, the Israeli government has announced its intention to use the ethnically cleansed Gaza Strip as land for the expansion of Israeli settlements; and

WHEREAS, Since 7 October 2023 the World Health Organization has recorded a total of 890 attacks on health facilities, with 447 in the West Bank and 443 occurring in Gaza, resulting in forced mass evacuations from hospitals, and multiple fatalities and casualties among patients, their companions, and displaced people taking refuge. All but three hospitals have been destroyed, two of which are in imminent danger of shutting down; and 

WHEREAS, the targeting of hospitals is a war crime and a violation of international law; and

WHEREAS, the Zionist state of Israel has deliberately targeted hospitals and carried out large-scale massacres at hospitals like al-Shifa and Nasser hospitals, in which mass graves of patients were found with their hands zip-tied; and

WHEREAS, the targeting of refugee camps is a war crime and a violation of international law; and

WHEREAS, Israel repeatedly bombed Jabalia refugee camp, Bureij refugee camp, and bombed and invaded Nuseirat refugee camp, killing thousands of civilians; and

WHEREAS, the targeting of schools is a war crime and a violation of international law; and

WHEREAS, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch report that Israel has repeatedly dropped white phosphorus bombs on Gaza, in violation of the Geneva Convention; and

WHEREAS, Israel has repeatedly kidnapped, held prisoner, tortured, starved, and in many cases killed civilians in Gaza at their detention camps, including women and children; and

WHEREAS, the Zionist state of Israel has murdered at least 36,050 Palestinians as of 27 May 2024[1] according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, 43,640 including those assumed dead under the rubble[2], with more being found every day; and

WHEREAS, the majority of the Palestinians killed by Israel have been between the ages of five and nine years old, and in October 2023, more than 400 children were killed or injured every day; and

WHEREAS, UNICEF, Save the Children and Oxfam have determined the siege on Gaza to be among the deadliest armed conflicts for children of the 21st century; and

WHEREAS, Israel refuses independent investigations of occurrences on 7 October 2023, subsequent war crimes, and refuses outside journalists,  and has killed at least 107 journalists and media workers in Gaza; and

WHEREAS, the state of Israel would not be able to maintain its settler-colonial, apartheid regime without the billions of dollars in military aid provided by the United States every year, thereby depriving Americans of taxpayer money for their own urgent needs.

Now, Therefore BE IT RESOLVED BY THE PEOPLE OF THE CITY OF AUSTIN:

SECTION 1. That the City of Austin demands an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the immediate and complete entry of humanitarian assistance and aid into Gaza; and further calls for the immediate end of Israel’s 17-year-long siege on Gaza.

SECTION 2. That the City of Austin recognizes that Israel’s genocide against Palestinians, which started with the 1948 Nakba, never ended and continues to this day, and further unequivocally condemns the Zionist State of Israel’s murder of Palestinians in Gaza and its war crimes in Palestine in contravention of international and humanitarian laws, including apartheid, ethnic cleansing, man-made starvation, arbitrary arrest and detention (administrative detention)— including of minors, and the torture, extra-judicial executions, rape and sexual assault, the ghettoization of civilian populations, deliberate bombing and military attacks of civilians, and the intentional destruction of infrastructure, including mosques, churches, homes, schools, and hospitals.

SECTION 3. That the City of Austin condemns Zionism as a racist, imperialist, and settler-colonial ideology.

SECTION 4. That the City of Austin affirms that Zionism does not represent Judaism and rejects the false conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism, and to this end, rejects any initiative, program, law, or act that criminalizes pro-Palestine speech or criticism of Israel.

SECTION 5. That the City of Austin calls for the immediate release of all Palestinian political prisoners and administrative detainees, including all Palestinian children being held and interrogated without lawyers or parents present and tried in military courts, as well as all other forms of hostages, as Israel is bombing and murdering its own Israeli hostages.

SECTION 6. That the City of Austin immediately and permanently ends all trainings between the Austin Police Department and Israeli police, military, or intelligence services.

SECTION 7. That the City of Austin immediately and permanently ends all relations, programs, and contracts with the Anti-Defamation League and all other Zionist organizations and entities.

SECTION 8. That the City of Austin affirms that Austin taxpayer funds should not fund the genocidal state of Israel, and to this end, fully discloses all existing contracts and programs the City of Austin has with Israel, Israeli companies, and weapons manufacturers, and fully divests from these entities; and further, permanently bans any future contracts and programs with these entities.

SECTION 9. That the City of Austin condemns and combats the anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim racism that is being used to manufacture consent for the ongoing genocide in Palestine and which has led to hate crimes against Palestinians and Muslims in the city of Austin, including the stabbing of Zacharia Doar in West Campus on 4 February 2024, as well as the violent attack on two students on 5 April 2024.

SECTION 10. That the City of Austin unequivocally condemns Governor Abbott’s anti-Palestinian Executive Order and UT President Hartzell’s brutal repression of students on UT Austin’s campus, in clear violation of the First Amendment, and further demands that UT Austin reinstate the Palestine Solidarity Committee and give full amnesty to all students unlawfully arrested for protesting on their own campus.

SECTION 11. That the City of Austin calls on The University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) to fully divest from the Zionist state of Israel, all Israeli companies, and all weapons manufacturers that provide arms & supplies to Israel.

SECTION 12. That the City of Austin, the capital of Texas, where the state's power is held, condemns the Texas Anti-BDS bill, and further demands the state of Texas fully disclose and divest from all Israeli bonds and investments, and terminates all contracts with Israel and companies that invest in Israel in contravention of international and humanitarian laws.

SECTION 13. That this resolution shall take effect immediately from and after its passage in accordance with the provisions of the Charter of the City of Austin, and it is accordingly so resolved.

[1] These are most likely undercounts as the hospitals where the data is collected have almost all been destroyed.

[2] Updated statistics can be found on Al Jazeera’s Live Tracker.