November 29, 2023
Riad Al-Malki, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the State of Palestine, said that the current truce must become a ceasefire and the massacres cannot be allowed to resume.
Recalling that over 15,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in Gaza, he said that no one and nowhere is safe in Gaza.
“How many times can the world afford to fail the test of humanity in Gaza, in Palestine?” he wondered, adding that a solvable political conflict has been turned into a never-ending religious confrontation.
In the General Assembly, the Prime Minister of Israel presented his vision for the new Middle East that wiped Palestine off the map — and now 1.7 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are displaced.
Israel has turned Gaza into hell on Earth and the lives of Palestinian communities in the West Bank into a living hell.
“The Palestinian people are here to stay, they are from this land and of this land and their destiny is to live in freedom and dignity on this land. Isn’t it time we found a way to live side by side?”
Turning to the situation in the occupied West Bank, he said that while the entire world rejects Israel’s colonial policies and violence, accountability cannot come from a Government whose agenda is the settlers’ agenda.
“We need international protection and international action to end impunity so as to prevent the recurrence of these crimes that occur daily and in broad daylight,” he said, adding that what the Palestinians are now enduring is the result of the international community’s failure to provide such protection and accountability.
The current Government in Israel, more than any other, considers Palestinian statehood to be a strategic threat, and its Prime Minister’s selling point to keep his post is that he is the best positioned to obstruct Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
“The man in charge of the assault against our people is one whose very political survival depends on prolonging the massacres and continuing to deny Palestinian rights,” he said.
“His interests do not only conflict with our inalienable rights but with all those who seek peace and security for all.”