Unarmed civilian protectors can provide critical nonviolent presence in Gaza

The following is an excerpt from an essay published in the National Catholic Reporter, May 21, 2024.

By Marie Dennis
Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace 2022
Senior director, Catholic Nonviolence Initiative
Former co-president, Pax Christi International

Israel’s punishing war on Gaza in retaliation for the gruesome attack led by Hamas on Oct.7, 2023, has shocked the world, created an all-encompassing humanitarian crisis, and intensified fear and division in many communities. People of conscience, including thousands of students around the world, are demanding an end to the violence. But, when there is a cease-fire and a return of the hostages, who will enforce it? Many of us believe in the immorality of adding more weapons to a highly militarized region and are pleading for a turn to nonviolence.

One important possibility would be to send to Gaza and the West Bank a large-scale, experienced, well-trained international force of unarmed civilian protectors, or UCP, who have proven that they can deter violence, accompany hostages, protect the delivery of humanitarian assistance, protect homes, and assist the implementation of cease-fires. Such an endeavor is being planned by an organizing group of experienced UCP practitioners, including Palestinians. As a Catholic organization committed to Gospel nonviolence, Pax Christi International’s Catholic Nonviolence Initiative is participating in this ambitious effort as an excellent example of carefully planned, potentially very effective nonviolent action in our world worn out by violence.

These civilian protectors will not be seconded, unarmed military and police units similar to the former Temporary International Presence in Hebron, or TIPH. Unarmed civilian protection is fundamentally different from armed peacekeeping. And they will have to have a robust mandate that includes direct protection — not just monitoring and reporting as TIPH had following the Oslo Accords.

In her March assessment of the crisis in Gaza and on the West Bank, Francesca Albanese, the U.N. Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories called for the temporary deployment, in consultation with the state of Palestine, of “an international protective presence to constrain the violence routinely used against Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory.”

Even though they have faced intensified harassment and violence from settlers and the Israeli Defense Forces, or IDF, since Oct. 7, groups including Ta’ayush, Looking the Occupation in the Eye, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, and Community Peacemaker Teams have been providing a protective presence and supporting self-protection in the homes of Palestinians and at checkpoints, and accompanying farmers and shepherds.

Always nonviolent and focusing on the primacy of local actors, at least 61 nongovernmental organizations now practice unarmed civilian protection in 30 areas of the world. At least 20 of these groups have had experience in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. …

Use this link to read the entire post on the NCR website.

Cover photo of members of the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) by Albin Hillert/WCC