**Date: March 7, 2012**

Yes to Ending the Division…Yes to Ending the Occupation

CWLRCP – Gaza, extends its greetings of pride and appreciation to the women of Palestine, wherever they may be in the homeland and the diaspora, on the occasion of March 8th, International Women’s Day. We say to every Palestinian woman struggling in her position and with her different political orientations – whether protecting and guarding her family at home, productive and generous in her contributions at work, filled with determination to continue progress and success in the halls of study and science, or struggling in the occupation’s prisons, clinging to the mission of defending her people’s cause – we say to them all on International Women’s Day that March 8th must be an occasion to raise our voices high and repeat together: We, the women of Palestine, reject the division, and the political forces and parties must bear their national responsibilities before our steadfast people by accelerating the achievement of national unity, because our people’s national issues of liberation and independence cannot be achieved under the continuation of the division. We, the women of Palestine, reject the occupation and insist on continuing the struggle to liberate our homeland, achieve our independence, and build our national democratic state with Jerusalem as its capital. In order to achieve these goals, we women must continue our struggle from our different positions and in our community institutions in order to achieve our demands for our civil and political rights based on participation and equality, because it is the main path to building Palestinian society and achieving social justice for every individual in it. We also extend our greetings and appreciation to all women throughout the Arab world and the world, and say to them: Let March 8th be a day of international feminist solidarity in order to be victorious for the issues of women’s rights and interests, which are necessarily the interests of peoples in all countries of the world. Let us all join hands in March, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, to achieve our goals of freedom and independence, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder for just laws that guarantee women social justice and equality, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder for the freedom of our brave prisoners and our heroic female prisoners, foremost among them Hana al-Shalabi. Glory and immortality to the souls of our martyrs, male and female. Long live our national unity…No to division…No to occupation.