This page contains the basic information of the https://gazabeach.nl website I made for the organizers of the event on 24 June 2025. This website was taken offline on 26 May 2026. There was no point in renewing the hosting of the site. But for the organizers, participants and hopefully for people wishing to organize similar events in the future, the essential elements of the event and its planning are reproduced below:

The event was planned to coincide with the NATO summit in The Hague, attended by President Trump. It was at this summit that most European NATO countries decided to increase their military spending to 5% of the national budget. But the organizers were mostly concerned about the silent complicity of NATO members in the genocide that Israel was perpetrating in Gaza. Trump’s outrageous plans for a luxury US-Israeli run Gaza Beach resort cleansed of hostile Arabs had been published shortly before. By organizing our own Gaza Beach event on the beach of The Hague we hoped to draw the attention of the world to this crime.

Below are pictures of the real beach in Gaza, shortly before the slaughter began

The organizers were the same as those behind the successful ‘Alternatieve 4 mei herdenking‘: Angelique Eijpe, Tessa Terpstra, Mariko Peters and Rebekka, assisted by many volunteers.

Impact

Not many people attended, as the draconian security measures around the NATO summit paralyzed The Hague and made many people scared of trying to make their way through the checkpoints under the constant drone of police helicopters. The cold, very windy weather didn’t help either. But Reuters, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, as well as local press attended and increased the impact of the event.

Agenda

19:00 Welcome – Mark van Kulsdom, Moderator

19:15 Scene Setter – Laura van Dolron, theater director

19:10 Poem “Peace to Gaza” by Fouad Soroujy – Dr. Dana Mustafa, writer

19:15 Speech about Gaza – Sami Simreen, social entrepreneur

19:20 Speech about NATO – Jan Pronk, former minister

19:30 Poems about Palestine – Stryder, word artist

19:40 Poem Mahmoud Darwish – Dana Mustafa & Angélique Eijpe (organiser)

19:45 Songs, including new work – Eva van Manen, singer songwriter

19:55 Parting words – Laura van Dolron

20:00 Tattoo – Mark Passenier, Trumpetist

20:00 DIE IN – everyone present

20:10 Song “De Liefde” – Eva van Manen

20:15 Dabke – Dance company Raj’een

Xandrine Koller took care of the graphics and the socials. The following flyer explains the Die-In to participants

Among the many contributions by volunteers to this event, this work by artist Meike van den Akker shows the political embedding of the event.

I made the website on Wix, without realizing it’s an Israeli tech company! We never noticed any obstruction by them, but the problem with Wix is that they won’t allow you to download your website files as a SQL database, so basically once made you can’t take it anywhere else. I made a screen recording of the website home page. Many nice videos were made, such as the one below, showing the Rajeen dancegroup teaching participants how to dance the Palestinian dabka, an uplifing end to a moving event: