Statement of the Lok Raj Sangathan, October 18, 2023
Israel has launched a no-holds barred war against the Palestinian people. For the past nine days, it has carried out relentless day and night bombing of residential areas, schools, and refugee camps in the Gaza strip resulting in the death of thousands of men, women and children, and injuries to tens of thousands more. In contravention of international law and humanitarian principles, the Israeli authorities have cut off water, food, medicines, fuel, and electricity from Gaza, in which two million Palestinian people live.
This is a war crime according to international law. Israeli missiles have brazenly targeted the second biggest hospital in Gaza, resulting in the death of at least 500 people, including doctors and other medical personal. Israel has targeted journalists, UN relief workers, health workers, and civilians at large. The ominous threats made by the Israeli Prime Minister and military leaders indicate that the Israeli authorities are preparing to commit genocide. The Israel army has been preparing for a land invasion of Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli army has been ruthlessly attacking and killing Palestinian youth who have expressed solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Gaza.
Israel is justifying its savage genocidal war on the Palestinian people in Gaza in the name of revenge against the surprise attack on October 7, 2023, by the Palestinian resistance fighters belonging to Hamas. The Gaza strip is fenced on all sides, making it the biggest open-air prison in the world. The Paestinian people living in Gaza have nowhere to go if they want to escape the relentless bombing, and the lack of food, water, and electricity. The United Nations must immediately take measures to bring the genocidal war launched by Israel against the Palestinian people to a halt.
The Israeli authorities are being supported by Western powers led by the US. They blame the Palestinian resistance fighters for the present situation, while they have aided and abetted the criminal acts of the Israeli regimes against the Palestinian people over decades. The stand of these powers that they aredefending human rights stands completely exposed with their brazen support for the genocidal war unleashed by Israel against the people of Gaza.
World over, people have come out onto the streets to condemn Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people, and to express their solidarity with the Palestinian people. People have condemned the role of the US and its European allies. They have appealed to the United Nations to take measures to bring the war to an immediate end.
The October 7, 2023, attack launched by Hamas is said to be in retaliation to the systematic killing of Palestinians by Israeli forces in the occupied territories of West Bank and Gaza. The Israeli government has imposed an inhuman air, sea and land blockade imposed on the Palestinian people living in the Gaza strip since 2007. Israel has launched four protracted military assaults on Gaza: in 2008, 2012, 2014 and 2021. Thousands of Palestinians, including children have been killed, and tens of thousands of homes, schools, hospitals, and office buildings have been destroyed.
It may be recalled that despite every single UN resolution, and despite repeated calls from the international community to desist, Israel has been expanding what are basically illegal settlements into the occupied areas and have relegated millions of Palestinian citizens into open-air prisons. Nearly a million Israeli settlers are now living in about 250 settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Israeli armed forces brutally attack and murder Palestinians who defend their land, their homes, and their places of worship.
Israel denies the right to self-determination and right to resistance of the Palestinian people and meets every single act of resistance with bullets and bulldozers, and with wanton acts of collective punishment. It has refused to end the occupation of Palestinian territories and the blockade of Gaza.
The Palestinian people have been waging a heroic struggle for their very right to exist as a nation, while the Israeli government has been trying might and main to destroy the nation of Palestine.
The United Nations must immediately take all possible steps to stop the genocidal war of Israel against the Palestinian people. It must ensure an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories and ensure the implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution for a two state solution. It must ensure the establishment of the state of Palestine, based on pre-1967 borders, with its capital as East Jerusalem.
Source of image: https://scroll.in/article/995008/the-weekend-fix-the-point-of-no-return-in-israel-palestine-conflict-plus-nine-other-sunday-reads
Image caption: A thick column of smoke rises from the Jala Tower as it is destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza city. | Mahmud Hams/AFP
