Climate Justice Coalition Joins Global Call to Break the Siege on Gaza
[South Africa] – 12 June 2025 — Today marks a historic moment of global solidarity as thousands of activists and health professionals from different countries gather in Egypt for the global March to Gaza. The Climate Justice Coalition (CJC) steering committee stands in firm support of this action, echoing the call to break Israel’s brutal siege on Gaza, end the ongoing genocide, and fight for a free Palestine. There can be no climate justice without confronting colonial violence and oppression.
“The struggle of the people of Gaza, and all oppressed people, is our struggle too,” said Gabriel Klaasen, General Secretary of the Climate Justice Coalition. “We must see the deep intersections between colonial violence and climate injustice, and respond not just with analysis, but with shared humanity. Justice anywhere is impossible when injustice anywhere continues. The only way we win is together.”
The Global March to Gaza kicks off today, with activists marching to the Rafah border crossing in northern Sinai to demand unrestricted humanitarian access into Gaza, where aid has been blocked since March 2. The action takes place amid a deepening humanitarian catastrophe, as Israel’s siege on Gaza escalates with widespread famine, displacement and destruction.
This mobilisation follows Israel’s recent violent attack on the Freedom Flotilla and the illegal detention of 12 peace activists. Among them is Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila, who remains imprisoned in solitary confinement in Givon Prison, on hunger and water strike. Others, including Swedish climate justice advocate Greta Thunberg, were forcibly deported. The CJC steering committee condemns this blatant repression and calls on international authorities to heed the activists’ demands: to deliver humanitarian aid and end the siege.
As the CJC, we continue to affirm that climate justice cannot be separated from global liberation struggles. The future of climate justice demands that we dismantle systems of oppression wherever they exist. From West Papua to Congo to Sudan to Palestine, we support movements fighting for land, dignity, the just distribution of resources, and self-determination. We also call out the role of global north governments in perpetuating systems of colonialism, extractivism, and war.
War is not only a human rights crisis: it is a climate crisis. Research by the Climate and Community Project shows that carbon emissions from just the first 60 days of Israel’s 2023 war on Gaza exceeded the annual emissions of over 30 countries, mostly among the world’s most climate-vulnerable. Israel’s military assault is accelerating climate breakdown, and we reject it entirely.
Last month, on May 28, the CJC participated in coordinated global actions alongside allies in Colombia, Peru, Germany, and Switzerland as part of the Global Energy Embargo Campaign. Demonstrations targeted Glencore’s AGM to demand the company stop exporting South African coal to Israel: coal which powers the military occupation, fuels illegal settlements, and supports genocide. We continue to demand a complete halt to coal exports to Israel.
There is no climate justice without confronting colonialism, imperialism, and genocide. From South Africa to Palestine, we will continue to stand with all who struggle for land, justice, and liberation.
For media enquiries:
Shaazia Ebrahim
Digital and Communications Specialist, Climate Justice Coalition
comms@climatejusticecoalition.org
+27833202255
About the Climate Justice Coalition: The Climate Justice Coalition is a coalition of South African trade unions, civil society, grassroots and community-based organisations working together on advancing a transformative climate justice agenda, which tackles the inequality, poverty and unemployment that pervades South Africa.