RAMALLAH, A former PLO official has praised a British activist who climbed a 200-meter crane in solidarity with Palestine.
Former member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Executive Committee, Hanan Ashrawi, commended 69-year-old Nick Georges, who risked his life climbing up the crane near the United States embassy in the Battersea area of south London at 4am on Tuesday, unfurling a Palestinian flag from the summit.
“Palestine is truly deeply grateful. You are a brave and honorable man & we love you. #Free Palestine,” Ashrawi tweeted.
In a video address, Georges said he had climbed the tower frame “to tell the world about Palestine”.
“For three months, I was sent to Palestine as a humanitarian witness,” Georges said. “I witnessed the atrocities and the horrors of the illegal Israeli occupation of the Palestinian homeland.”
“I’ve seen a house where a family of four were burnt alive by Jewish settlers with incendiary bombs. I’ve seen land desecrated, olive plantations burned. I’ve seen so many demolitions of homes and houses by JCB machines, British-built machines, in Israel,” said Georges.
“Every day … they’re demolishing more Palestinian homes. The Palestinians have no rights. Even their electricity and their water is taken from them,” he added.
“Israel is the fourth-largest nuclear military power in the world. The Palestinians have nothing. As a Christian who cares, I can’t just stand by and let this go on. We should all be doing more to promote the cause of peace and freedom for the Palestinians and stop the horrors that Israel is visiting upon these people.”
The crane is situated on a building site at One Nine Elms, a £1bn project which will include a luxury skyscraper, and is opposite the new US embassy which opened in January 2018. Roads were closed in the surrounding area on Tuesday as a precaution.
Supporters of Georges waiting below the crane told local media that he scaled the structure with no hard hat or safety net.
“He has done something quite death-defying, I think because for Palestinians daily life under the Israeli boot of apartheid is death-defying,” fellow activist Sarah Wilkinson told local media at the scene.
Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency