International Human Solidarity Day 2024: Pakistani brother-sister initiate ‘Stop Infanticide in Gaza’ petition

LAHORE, Dec 19 (APP): As part of the International Human Solidarity Day 2024, being observed across globe on December 20, two minor Pakistani siblings have initiated an online petition, titled ‘Stop Infanticide in Gaza’ to reinvigorate their over six-month-long campaign for protecting the lives of Palestinian children, as well as those living in conflict zones of the world.
The petition could be accessed and signed at www.stopInfanticide.world.
The announcement was made in a press release, issued by the children through Prof Dr Aurangzeb Hafi, their father as well as inspiration, who’s the senior principal investigator (PI) for postdoctoral research in Asia and Oceania, on Thursday — the eve of the International Human Solidarity Day 2024.
According to the release, the petition of 10-and-a-half-year-old Ubaydah al-Fiddhah Hafiah and her 12-year-old brother Ghulam Bishar Hafi, addresses the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, and Catherine Russell, the Executive Director of UNICEF to take serious and timely action to stop the ongoing Infanticide in Gaza. The petition is destined at making the global leaders and institutions turn their attention to the cries of innocent children, who are becoming the softest targets and the easiest objects of prey in wars and conflict zones.
The signature-signing petition is also aimed at rallying the world support for the terror-stricken children of Gaza, especially newborn babies, constantly experiencing bombing, and who are without any feed for days. Evidence-based data shows that in Gaza, nearly 700,000 children are starving to death. It is an unparalleled reference point of shame that babies in cradles are being shot, and infants are traumatised in their earliest moments of life, through ‘Neo-Hitlerian’ tactics.
Their online petition also coincides with an exhibition, titled ‘Gaza, Palestine: A Crisis of Humanity’, being organised at the Visitors’ Lobby of the UN General Assembly building from Nov 26, 2024 to Jan 5, 2025.
Earlier, on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, observed every year on November 29, these children had dedicated their awards to the children of Gaza, who are victims of unprecedented violence in the world history. Ubaydah al-Fiddhah and Ghulam Bishar Hafi were honoured by the UN-KAKHTAH for their symbolic act of writing open letters with their own blood to the world bodies to highlight the plight of children in Gaza and other parts of the world.
They were honoured with the UN’s ‘Grace Do Monaco’ International Medal and the ‘Eglantyne Jebb Platinum Pen for Peace’ on the World Children’s Day 2024, observed on Nov 20 every year, for consistently raising voice for the horror-struck children in Gaza, Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir, Congo, Mozambique, Myanmar, Syria and elsewhere in the world.
On the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, they dedicated their awards to the children of Gaza, as a mark of solidarity with them. Inspired by their parents, Prof. Dr. Aurangzeb Hafi, and Dr. Bareera N.B., the minor children had begun writing their protest notes, open letters and resolutions with their own blood over Gaza children’s miseries, along with an open letter to the global hierarchies, to stir the world’s conscience on the International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression in June this year. Some of their blood-written notes read as: “Break now the criminal silence and shamelessness upon the ongoing infanticide in Gaza”; “Cultivate peace for the children – Reap peace for the world”; “Let’s raise our voices for the voiceless – the innocent children, mercilessly trapped in war and aggression, like those in Gaza, Congo, Mozambique, Myanmar, and Syria”; “Humanitarian eyes are needed to see the humanitarian crisis in Gaza”; and “Shredded bodies of the innocent children in cradles beg for peace”.
Besides dedicating their awards, the brother-sister duo had made their supplication pleas to the entire humanity, and made them the first distal supplementary facet of the UN exhibit titled ‘Gaza, Palestine: A Crisis of Humanity’, currently under way at the Visitors’ Lobby of the UN General Assembly building.
The supplications read:
“By means of our blood-written testimony, we, the two tiniest ones, hereby beg and supplicate to everyone on this planet that:
“Shouldn’t we — the entire humanity, now stand up together for the sake of re-echoing the screams of ‘dying-alive’ poor Palestinian children — in order to prick the collective conscience of the world, as well as our own — as a humanitarian assembly — jointly and equally voicing for the voiceless Gazan babies in cradles:
“O, the listening ears of the world — listen to the screams of dying-alive Palestinian children — their lives are as precious as your own kids’ lives!!!
“O, the observing eyes of the world — just have a view of the innocent Gazan children — see, they are being converted from glimmering flowers to dusky coffins—look at these desperate children, who are now on their knees, before the collective conscience of the world, — ‘begging for the breaths for their lives’!!!
“O people of the world, remember, remember, and remember it again-n-again that — the poor Palestinian children, that are begging for peace from the world, in every single breath of their life, are not — but like your own ones!!!”
As far as the history of the day is concerned, the International Human Solidarity Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly to recognise solidarity as a core value in international relations. The concept of solidarity is rooted in the UN’s mission to bring nations together to promote peace, human rights, and sustainable development. The establishment of the World Solidarity Fund in 2002 further emphasised the need for collective action to support the world’s most vulnerable populations.
The UN General Assembly, on December 22, 2005, by resolution 60/209, identified solidarity as one of the fundamental and universal values that should underlie relations between peoples in the twenty-first century, and in that regard decided to proclaim December 20 of each year International Human Solidarity Day.