Dear friends,

For the past 2 years we have been building friendship links with people in Al-Mawasi in Gaza, helping to raise funds for community projects, giving English language lessons and meeting people online. 

The last week has been all our worst nightmares. We have lost contact with many of our friends but we have had constant contact with Naheel, the main co-ordinator of the Committee for Enhancing Community Resilience in Al-Mawasi, and some other volunteers from the committee. The bombing around their community centre, which they call the Safe Space, has been so intense they have all been displaced to the nearby town of Khan Younis. We have sent money to help with basic provisions but they can't access it yet because the banks and currency exchanges are shut and there is no electricity. 

All they are asking from us is to speak up for them to the world leaders who are allowing or supporting this atrocity to continue.

The messages are harrowing and grow increasingly desperate. This is a message from Naheel this morning - "They're terrorising hospitals, imagine them going into hospitals and threatening people. May Allah have mercy on us. Please tell everyone tell all the countries tell your friends tell all people to stand with us, we're tired, very very tired."

We think now is the time for Hastings Council to vote to officially twin Hastings with Al-Mawasi. This simple but powerful gesture of solidarity can assert our shared humanity in this very dark time.

Please share this petition now with your friends and family and ask them to sign.

Please follow our updates from Al-Mawasi on facebook and online

Please speak up for Gaza wherever you can, to try to avert what looks like a certain genocide if Israel continues its assault. Write to your MP. Join the rallies, vigils and marches. We must not allow anyone to say they do not know what is happening, and we must stand against this inhuman barbarism or truly we are all lost.