Keep phones switched off from 9 pm to 9:30 pm to support Palestine: CPI(M)

New Delhi | The Communist Party of India (Marxist) on Saturday endorsed the "Silence for Gaza" global call that urges people to switch off their mobile phones for half an hour everyday, from 9 pm to 9:30 pm local time, as a symbolic act of solidarity with the people of Palestine.

"The CPI(M) urges people across the country to actively participate in this digital resistance by spreading the word: switch off your mobile phones and abstain from posting, liking or commenting on any social media platform during the protest period," the Left party said.

"In joining the global 'Silence for Gaza' campaign, the CPI(M) stands with the Palestinian people and against the brutal, genocidal assault unleashed by Israel. Let this collective silence be a defiant refusal to be complicit, and a powerful assertion that the voices against war crimes will not be silenced," it added.

The CPI(M) quoted a recently-released UN report, "From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide", and said it details how various multinational corporations are complicit in Israel's assault on Gaza.

"The sinister role of these corporations must be exposed and they must be held accountable to the people," it said.

"These corporations feed off our digital footprints, even as they enable genocide. Shutting off our mobile phones for half an hour each day at the designated time is a small but powerful act of digital disruption, a strike against the surveillance capitalism that bankrolls Israel's genocide and apartheid," the Left party added.

The war in Gaza was set off after Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 250 people hostage. Israel responded with an offensive that has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, displaced nearly all of Gaza's 20 lakh people and left many on the edge of famine.