Bloody Sunday Lecture: 'It is powerful to be able to say, Derry stands with Palestine'

“Israel cannot remake its face to say, ‘Nothing has happened. We are part of the international community. We are not a pariah state’.

“In fact, Israel has shown what it is, along with Zionism as a political ideology, which is a racist ideology, and a colonial and an occupation-based state. 

“It cannot exist in today’s world. I think that is the message we want people and countries to be able to offer in this way.”

This was the reflective analysis of Nadya Tannous, the organiser with the Palestinian Youth Movement who delivered the annual Bloody Sunday lecture in Derry on Friday evening.

Speaking to The Derry News before the lecture, Nadya explained the Palestinian Youth Movement was a grassroots organisation of Arab and Palestinian youth in the US, Canada, Britain and Italy. 

“We organise in the diaspora to confront Zionism and also to uplift the Palestinian people. We are a pluralistic organisation of people from many  different walks of life, coming together in the post-Oslo moment; we would call ourselves the post-Oslo generation,” said Nadya.

IN PICTURES: Bloody Sunday annual lecture given by Nadya Tannous (Palestinian Youth Movement)

The Bloody Sunday lecture held in Derry's North West Learning Disability Centre

“The Oslo Accords [signed in 1993 and 1995]  were the negotiations that created this political moment. They were one of the worst things to happen to thePalestinian people.

“Because it was the Accords that geographically fragmented us, politically fragmented us from each other, economically fragmented the Palestinian people and culturally fragmented us from each other. 

“That was why the Palestinian Youth Movement was founded in 2006. It was about being able to create a place where Palestinians could come together and say, ‘We are part of a national liberation struggle and we have demands’ - returning to the land, making sure every single refugee is able to return home and the self-determination of the Palestinian people,” said Nadya. 

Nadya was adamant that this did not “just exist in the sky”.

“It exists in us,” she said, “so how do we do that together?”

“We can see the really important role of youth historically, in any struggle for justice but also in this moment, in the past 15 months. You can see how students and young people have really been at the front of organising. That is why the Palestinian Youth Movement exists. 

Nadya has Palestinian and Irish heritage. Born in California, her mum, Kathleen is from Cootehill in Cavan, and her dad, Raja, is from Palestine. 

“My parents taught me it was really important to stand up against oppression and just because someone in authority tells you something, it doesn’t mean that they are right,” she smiled. 

“Standing up against oppression wherever you go for all people was really something that was really instilled in us,” said Nadya. 

Delighted to be in the city for the second time in a year, Nadya said the solidarity of the Derry people with the Palestinian people was immediately obvious walking around. 

“The solidarity of the Irish people, particularly of the Derry people, is so strong and so firmly with Palestinian justice, with Palestinian people and trying to work on things like creating an apartheid free zone in this moment,” said Nadya. 

“Yesterday the grandchildren of those families impacted by Bloody Sunday carried pictures of children who have been martyred and killed by the occupation [at the Bloody Sunday monument in the Bogside].

“It was so powerful and it shows, no matter what happens, it is the generation after generation that picks up this fight.

“It is crucial now more than ever to have a solidarity movement as we have a ceasefire and it is very tenuous. We need to highlight the crimes that Israel has committed and the crime of genocide. We need to make sure this can never happen again, to anybody, but it doesn’t happen again to us.

“We also need to rebuild Gaza and make sure Gaza doesn’t just survive, which it has, but Gaza is able to live; that is a role all of us can play,” said Nadya. 

Nadya welcomed the fact Ireland had been clear that anyone who had committed a war crime would be questioned - especially those on the International Criminal Court list.

She included Benjamin Netanyahu [Israel’s Prime Minister] and Yoav Gallant [an Israeli politician and former military officer who served as Minister of Defense between 2022 and 2024].

“We also think it is really important to extend that to soldiers. We see that New Zealand and Australia have just implemented a policy where Israelis who are visiting either country need to fill out a form to say where they were during the last 15 months; what their years of service were; and if they served in Gaza,” said Nadya.

“Tonight I will be talking about rebuilding. I will be talking about accountability for those who are guilty of the crime of Zionism. I will talk about confronting Zionism, particularly through arms embargoes. 

“It is also important for Nation states like Ireland and Spain to take a stand and say UNRWA - the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees is being unilaterally destroyed.

“UNRWA is really the frontline of the service to the Palestinian people for basic medical services like shots for Children. 

“We also think the US is complicit; it was a US and an Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people. If there are American personnel or weapons coming through Shannon they need to be inspected. 80% of the infrastructure in Gaza has been completely destroyed - sewage, food, water, health and education,” said Nadya.

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The cross, which is one of four to be erected across the north, was officially unveiled at Free Derry Corner

Huge turnout for Eucharistic Procession to celebrate St. Brigid’s Day

Having set out from the Long Tower Church the procession made its way to the Guildhall Square for the Recitation of the Rosary

Referring to the “powerful” images of Palestinans returning to Gaza, Nadya said it was along a highway Israel described as the ‘first highway in the newly settled Israeli Gaza’.

“Obviously they have failed at that point,” said Nadya. “Palestinians are using this highway to go back north, to return home to live in the rubble not knowing what they are going to find .

“We know that our people are steadfast. We know that our people in this moment are victorious and we know that they have also survived a genocide and are now facing down very real settler violence and Israeli military and occupational violence and the reality of annexation and mass imprisonment.

“We can’t overestimate how significant it is that 3,000 Palestinian political prisoners are being released in the prisoner exchange. These are people who have served life sentences, who have been in administrative detention  - a British system inherited in Palestine. People imprisoned with no charge and no legal recourse.

“There really is an optimism which is hard to imagine when you pair that with the sheer amount of violence and destitution visited on Gaza.

“It is powerful to be able to say, Derry stands with Palestine. All around the world and in Palestine there is a generation of young people who have been totally changed. Just like at one point Derry was the centre of the world with civil rights, Palestine today is the centre of the world because Palestine  has changed the world.”