2026 War Abolisher Awards Announced, Event Scheduled - World BEYOND War
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The awardees will accept their awards in an online event on July 24. The event is free and open to the media and the public. #WorldBEYONDWar

By World BEYOND War, July 10, 2026

The 2026 War Abolisher Awards Will Be Presented to

  • No Foreign Bases in Ecuador,
  • Mazin Qumsiyeh and Jessie Chang Qumsiyeh,
  • The Directors of Earth’s Greatest Enemy,
  • Palestine Action,
  • Flotillas to Gaza.

The global peace organization World BEYOND War has announced the awardees for its sixth annual War Abolisher Awards. The awardees will accept their awards in an online event on July 24. The event is free and open to the media and the public. Those wishing to attend the event on Zoom can register at
https://worldbeyondwar.org/war-abolisher-awards

The timing of the online event on July 24 will be 17:00-19:00 UTC, which is two hours beginning at 10 a.m. U.S. Pacific Time, 12 p.m. noon in Quito, 1 p.m. in Eastern U.S., 14:00 in Brasilia, 18:00 in London, 19:00 in Amsterdam, 20:00 in Istanbul and in Palestine. A video of the event will be posted afterwards at https://worldbeyondwar.org/war-abolisher-awards

The first award presentation will be partially in Spanish with English interpretation, the other four in English.

War Abolisher Campaign of 2026: No Foreign Bases in Ecuador

The award for War Abolisher Campaign of 2026 will be presented to representatives of the No Foreign Bases in Ecuador movement that successfully organized and promoted the public rejection of a proposed change to the Constitution of Ecuador that would have allowed foreign military bases in the country. Three individuals from two organizations that were central to this effort will accept this award: Pablo A. de la Vega on behalf of Segundo Montes Mozo SJ Human Rights Documentation Center, and Fernado Luis García Rodríguez and Yumac Ortiz both on behalf of the Coordinating Committee for Peace, Sovereignty, Integration, and Non-Interference. The award will be presented by World BEYOND War Executive Director David Swanson.

These organizers of efforts to keep foreign military bases out of Ecuador spent years doing educational, media, and activist work, bringing prominent voices into the effort and mobilizing popular enthusiasm for maintaining an independent nation. An online event in 2024 included a former president of the National Assembly and a former Minister of the Economy. Gabriela Rivadaneira, former president of the National Assembly of Ecuador, explained the reasons that had led to the closure of the U.S. military base in Manta in 2009, a victory that many could remember, celebrate, and work to keep.

She also pointed out how the Galapagos Islands were effectively being used as a military base of operations by the U.S. Army. Concern over the Galapagos brought environmentalists into the effort to keep bases out. Former presidential candidate, Andres Arauz, wrote “I am hurt because they want to turn an ecological paradise, a world heritage site, islands full of peace, into a brothel for US Navy sailors and convert the economy of the islands to dependence on gringo military spending. I am hurt because a gringo president who claims to be Ecuadorian [Daniel Noboa] has surrendered the sovereignty of my country. I am hurt because he does not care that our most precious paradise is a foreign military base to control the Pacific in the context of interstate war. To combat drug trafficking, warships are not needed. You need gringos to CONSUME LESS DRUGS with aggressive public health programs that disrupt domestic trafficking networks in the largest cities in the US.”

A petition urged the National Assembly not to pass a bill to allow foreign bases, but it passed it, setting up a public referendum. People continued to speak out, to debunk arguments that a foreign military base could provide safety or jobs, and to remind people of the abuses that had accompanied the base from 1999 to 2009. Opponents of foreign bases urged No votes leading up to the public referendum. And in November 2025, 61% of voters rejected the change to the Constitution, keeping in place the ban on foreign bases.

Pablo A. de la Vega is Coordinator of the Segundo Montes Mozo SJ Human Rights Documentation Center as well as of the Ecuadorian Association of Friendship with the Sahrawi People, and the Africa, Middle East, and Asia Chair at the University of Tifariti. He was a member of the International Delegation on the Decontamination and Conversion of the Military Bases in San Juan and Vieques (Puerto Rico), organized by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). He has promoted numerous initiatives in favor of peace, human rights, and internationalist solidarity in and with Colombia, Cuba, the Basque Country, Iran, Palestine, Puerto Rico, and Western Sahara.

On several occasions he has participated as a petitioner in the Special Committee on Political Affairs and Decolonization of the United Nations General Assembly and appeared in 2024 before the Special Ad Hoc Committee to discuss the Partial Reform Project to the Constitution (Art. 5) of the National Assembly of Ecuador with the presentation “Military bases, geopolitics and human rights”.

Fernado Luis García Rodríguez is a visual artist, set designer, film animator, teacher, and political activist. Since 2000, he has participated in various organizations supporting the Venezuelan Bolivarian process. In 2002, he was part of the founding of the Bolivarian Circle of Ecuador, an organization through which he promoted international solidarity activities and the dissemination of Bolivarian thought. In 2017, he participated in the creation of the Coordinator for Peace, Sovereignty, Integration, and Non-Interference (CPAZ), a human rights movement in which he served on its board and held positions as academic director and member of the Political Training Commission. In 2025, he presented a paper before the National Assembly’s Defense Committee regarding the presence of foreign military bases on Ecuadorian territory.

Yuma Ortiz is a cultural anthropologist and heritage manager, a communicator, visual artist, and human rights activist. He is Executive Director of the Corporation for Cultural and Tourism Promotion and President of the Coordinator for Peace, Sovereignty, Integration, and Non-Intervention (CPAZ). CPAZ is an inclusive and participatory social movement for peace and human rights, dedicated to the promotion and defense of human rights in all their dimensions, both nationally and internationally. It emphasizes preserving Latin America and the Caribbean as a territory of peace, defending the self-determination of peoples, and strengthening active solidarity that integrates the countries of the world into a new era of commitments to life, social justice, and the environment.

War Abolisher Couple of 2026: Mazin Qumsiyeh and Jessie Chang Qumsiyeh

The War Abolisher Couple of 2026 award will be presented by World BEYOND War Treasurer John Reuwer to Mazin Qumsiyeh and Jessie Chang Qumsiyeh. They gave up very comfortable lives in the United States to return to Mazin’s home in Palestine, where they volunteer fulltime, seven days a week to build what is now an oasis of peace and hope in Bethlehem, occupied Palestine. They founded the Palestine Institute for Biodiversity and Sustainability of Bethlehem University (palestinenature.org) and the Palestine Museum of Natural History. The institute has a vision of sustainable human and natural communities. Its motto is respect: for ourselves, for fellow human beings, and for nature.

Mazin B. Qumsiyeh is Professor, Founder and Director, while Jessie Chang Qumsiyeh is Co-founder, and Volunteer Assistant to the Director. Since 2014, they have worked to create and expand the institute, developing educational tools, community and botanical gardens, natural history exhibits, a mobile educational unit, conservation efforts, and a museum of the history of the Nakba, as well as publishing scientific papers.

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh is a scientist, author, educator, and activist trained in biology and medical genetics. He has published over 150 scientific papers and several books on topics ranging from cultural heritage to biodiversity. His commitment to nonviolent resistance and environmental sustainability has been instrumental in advancing peace and education in Palestine. On the website at palestinenature.org you can explore the history of agriculture and Palestinian cultural heritage through exhibits, databases, and games.

Our war abolisher couple have produced webinars with titles such as:

  • Settler Colonialism and the Natural Environment
  • The link between human diversity, biodiversity and sustainability

They have worked to advance the BDS movement, traveled extensively to promote peace in Palestine, and spoken on many online events. In 2024, Mazin Qumsiyeh spoke on a webinar about ecocide, medicide, scholasticide, and veridicide in Gaza and about omnicide on Earth, including documenting the climate impact of the genocide in Palestine.

They have worked together with non-Zionist Jews towards peace.

Mazin has been arrested on multiple occasions for nonviolent acts of resistance to occupation.

Mazin Qumsiyeh’s books include Popular Resistance in Palestine: A History of Hope and Empowerment, and Sharing the land of Canaan: human rights and the Israeli-Palestinian struggle.

Through a wide variety of efforts Mazin and Jessie have educated and inspired huge numbers of people.

Artistic War Abolishers of 2026: The Directors of Earth’s Greatest Enemy

The Artistic War Abolishers of 2026 award will be presented by World BEYOND War Advisory Board Member Matthew Hoh to the directors of the film Earth’s Greatest Enemy, Abby Martin and Mike Prysner. Among the worst horrors we face are war and environmental collapse, and among the least understood phenomena in the world is the deep connection between those two. Among the most powerful media we have is film. So, to have talented film makers brilliantly take on this topic with an educational, entertaining, and inspirational picture, and for them to use the film to organize events to generate activism is a wonderful gift to the peace movement. The film not only educates on the issue but models holding powerful people to account for the destruction.

We have great movements of climate activism. We have strong opposition to the war on Iran — a good bit of it focused on anger over the increased price of gasoline. But how many people noticed the war-fueled pollution plume the size of Italy, visible from space, spreading thousands of miles from that war? How many make the connections between war-driven hostility and the lack of cooperation on climate, between war expenses and the lack of investment in climate, between fossil fuel profiteering and where the wars happen? This film could change how the world thinks and acts.

Abby Martin is a journalist, filmmaker, visual artist, and activist, a founder of Media Roots, who serves on the board of the Media Freedom Foundation. She co-directed 99%: The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film, and hosted Breaking the Set from 2012 to 2015, before creating The Empire Files as an investigative documentary and interview series. In 2019, she released the film documentary The Empire Files: Gaza Fights for Freedom.

Michael Prysner, co-producer, co-director, and husband to Abby Martin, was co-founder of March Forward!, an organization of active-duty members of the U.S. military and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars that encourages active-duty service personnel to resist deployment and seek an honorable discharge by being a conscientious objector. In 2008, he testified at the Winter Soldier hearings on his time in the U.S. military in Iraq. Prysner has served on the Board of Directors of Veterans For Peace. In 2026, he became director of the Center on Conscience and War. He has engaged in many protests of war and been repeatedly arrested.

Organizational War Abolisher of 2026: Palestine Action

The Organizational War Abolisher of 2026 award will be presented by World BEYOND War Europe Organizer Annachiara Canetta to a representative of Palestine Action, Co-Founder Huda Ammori.

Palestine Action, based in the UK, is a direct action movement committed to ending global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime. Using disruptive tactics, Palestine Action targets corporate enablers of the Israeli military-industrial complex and seeks to make it impossible for these companies to profit from the oppression of Palestinians.

Palestine Action’s primary target has been Elbit Systems, Israel’s biggest weapons producer. Palestine Action has disrupted, damaged property, vandalized, and brought about the closure of Elbit Systems facilities. While Palestine Action’s property destruction has been mischaracterized as violence, the violence of manufacturing weapons for a genocide has been mischaracterized as a respectable activity. Elbit’s products have been used extensively in the mass-slaughter of people in Palestine, after which Elbit has typically labeled its weapons “battle-tested” as it has marketed them to other governments. Through sustained direct action, Palestine Action has compelled Elbit to shut down weapons factories, to lose lucrative contracts, and to lose partnerships with several other companies — secondary targets also disrupted by Palestine Action.

After a series of sustained disruptive direct actions against Elbit’s Leicester factory in Britain, UAV Tactical Systems, Elbit Systems UK lost the biggest contract it had ever received, worth over £2billion. Elbit sold its Tamworth factory to a non-weapons company after its profits dropped to 75% due to constant disruption and Elbit’s consequent increased investment in security.

Palestine Action participants have been willing to risk and imprisonment, and some of them have now been sentenced to prison (for periods from 4 years to 7 years and 8 months). In addition, in 2025 the British government gave Palestine Action the Orwellian label of “terrorist group,” and criminalized any expression of support for Palestine Action. Thousands of people have since been arrested for expressing their support for Palestine Action and opposition to the genocide in Gaza — in which the British government is complicit and for which it has neither investigated nor indicted anyone. The High Court of Justice ruled the “proscription” of Palestine Action illegal in February 2026, and the Court of Appeal reversed that decision in June.

Also in February 2026, six participants in an action, who openly admitted to destroying property, but who argued the necessity to prevent greater evil, were acquitted by a jury.

In addition to numerous action against Elbit factories and executives’ homes in the UK and elsewhere, Palestine Action has also targeted other companies such as Leonardo, university buildings, and at least one military base, the RAF Brize Norton base where activists used “repurposed fire extinguishers” to spray red paint into the turbines of two Royal Air Force Airbus Voyager refueling planes. Palestine Action maintains a website suggesting appropriate targets.

“It is a huge honour to accept this award,” said Huda Ammori, “acknowledging the effective direct action taken by thousands of people, who sacrificed their liberty, in order to disrupt the Israeli war machine. There are still many Palestine Action prisoners locked up in British jails, accused of taking necessary action to try and stop the genocide. All of them have been detained far beyond the pre-trial custody time limit of six months and for the act of destroying Israeli weapons including quadcopter drones, four have been sentenced as terrorists. Whilst the British government decided to award our efforts to save lives in Palestine by labelling us as terrorists, this award signifies what ordinary people know to be true, that saving lives is not terrorism.”

War Abolisher Movement of 2026: Flotillas to Gaza

The people of Gaza have been effectively imprisoned and cut off from the world for the past 40 years — even when being bombed — by the Israeli military’s control of the borders. Israeli officials have expressed the intention of starving the people of Gaza, and many in Palestine have suffered starvation. Caring people have tried for many years now to bring aid to Gaza, sometimes by land, usually by sea. These attempts have steadily grown in size and in the attention they have compelled global governments and media to pay to the horrors inflicted on Palestinians by the Israeli government.

The War Abolisher Movement of 2026 award will be presented by World BEYOND War Vice President Liz Remmerswall to the Flotillas to Gaza, honoring everyone who has participated in and supported these efforts over the years. Accepting the award on behalf of the whole movement will be representatives from two of the key organizations: Thiago de Ávila e Silva Oliveira on behalf of the Global Sumud Flotilla, and Ismail Behesti on behalf of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.

In 2008, five boats from the Free Gaza Movement reached Gaza, marking the first break of Israel’s naval blockade. No boats have reached Gaza since 2008, with the exception of parts of a boat from the 2026 flotilla washing onto the shores of Gaza. Boats have all been attacked or hijacked by the Israeli military.

In 2010, Israeli troops raided the Mavi Marmara and six other ships in international waters and killed 10 activists and injured dozens, leading to global outrage. In 2011, Freedom Flotilla II involved more than 300 participants from around the world and was set to sail with 10 vessels. But sabotage of ships, and restrictions imposed byGreece, where the boats were departing from — caving to pressure from Israel — kept all boats from sailing. The Dignite-Al Karama came close to reaching Gaza. Israeli troops intercepted the ship. In 2012, the large sailing ship Estelle, attempted to break the illegal Israeli naval blockade of Gaza. In 2015, Freedom Flotilla III made a new attempt with four shipe. The Marianne reached 100 nautical miles off the Gaza coast before Israeli troops boarded. In 2016, the Women’s Boat to Gaza attempted to break the siege. The Gaza Freedom Flotilla in 2018 with two boats, Al Awda and Freedom, met the same fate, and participants reported being assaulted by Israelis.

Efforts grew in 2024 with the Gaza Freedom Flotilla attempting to bring 5,000 tons of aid on three ships. By 2025, Israel had begun attacking Freedom Flotilla Coalition ships with drones, severely damaging the Conscience off Malta. The IOF used chemical sprays from drones on FFC’s Madleen and Handala ships prior to boarding.

In late 2025, a new organization, the Global Sumud Flotilla, sailed 42 boats, an unprecedented number. Several days later the Freedom Flotilla Coalition sailed the conscience with 92 persons onboard with the Thousand Madleen organization’s eight sailboats. None from either flotilla reached Gaza, but greater attention was brought to the suffering of the people in Gaza, and greater pressure was brought on countries to stop funding weapons to israel and to not impede, even to support the flotillas, and to speak up to protect their citizens among flotilla participants. And Israel began dropping bombs on boats.

In 2026 the Global Sumud Flotilla — after attempting to block a ship bringing military equipment supplies to the Israeli military — tried again to reach Gaza with aid using more boats than ever, departing from various ports in the Mediterranean in March and April. Two thousand people from over 45 countries actively participated, and 600 sailed on 81 boats. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition sailed five boats with 37 participants.

Almost 500 unarmed civilians went eyeball to eyeball with heavily armed troops of one of the most lethal militaries in the world, took some serious injuries, but returned home with heads held high, cheered on by millions of people the world over. After years of the world seeing videos of a genocide, much of the world now saw videos of people from all over the world being mistreated by Israeli troops and top officials. Governments were compelled to respond, and establishment media outlets were compelled to report on not just the abuse of Flotilla participants but also on the abuse of Palestinians.

The president of South Korea excoriated the israeli government and sent diplomats to demand the immediate release of the two south korean participants. The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the chargé d’affaires of the Israeli embassy in Madrid and strongly condemned the operation. Several governments and human rights organizations described the “interception” of ships as violating international law. The foreign ministries of several countries, including France, Canada, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Italy, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Greece, Germany, Poland, Qatar, Slovenia, Turkey, Austria, Belgium, Colombia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand condemned the treatment of kidnapped activists. France banned Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir from entering the country. Poland imposed a five-year entry ban on Ben-Gvir. Ireland prohibited Itamar Ben Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich from entering the country. The New York Times wrote at length about torture of Palestinians by Israel.

The United States government, ever the protector of the criminal actions of the state of Israel, condemned the flotilla as it has done since 2008 while it continues to support the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, the destruction of southern Lebanon, and the attack on Iran.

“The flotillas are a collective action of thousands of people all over the world who believe that the genocide must end and true peace with justice must be achieved for Palestinians and all opressed people in the world,” said Thiago de Ávila e Silva Oliveira.

The awards ceremony will be hosted by World BEYOND War President Kathy Kelly.

World BEYOND War is a global nonviolent movement, founded in 2014, to end war and establish a just and sustainable peace. The purpose of the awards is to honor and encourage support for those working to abolish the institution of war itself. With the Nobel Peace Prize and other nominally peace-focused institutions so frequently honoring other good causes or, in fact, wagers of war, World BEYOND War intends its awards to go to educators or activists intentionally and effectively advancing the cause of war abolition, accomplishing reductions in war-making, war preparations, or war culture. World BEYOND War received hundreds of impressive nominations. The World BEYOND War Board, with assistance from its Advisory Board and Staff, made the selections.

The awardees are honored for their body of work directly supporting one or more of the three segments of World BEYOND War’s strategy for reducing and eliminating war as outlined in the book A Global Security System, An Alternative to War. They are: Demilitarizing Security, Managing Conflict Without Violence, and Building a Culture of Peace.

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