Palestinian Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki has decried the deplorable conditions in which Palestinians at the Gaza Strip currently live.
He accused Israel of intentionally starving Palestinians as a “weapon of war.”
Riyad al-Maliki made these remarks while speaking at a UN event to mark the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
He said, “As we speak, at least 1 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, half of them children, are starving, not because of a natural disaster or because of lack of generous assistance waiting at the border…”
“No, they are starving because of Israel’s deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war against the people it occupied,” he added.
Al-Maliki stated that the protection of Palestinians has been an “utter international failure.”
“Rather than insisting on respecting the Palestinian people’s basic right to eat and drink water, we are living through this dystopian reality that excludes Palestinians from the basic, most basic rights afforded to all human beings.”
Riyad al-Maliki
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu stated on Tuesday, December 12, 2023, that while his country appreciates the U.S’ support for its goals of destroying Hamas and recovering captives held in Gaza, they differ on what post-war governance in the besieged enclave would look like.
Netanyahu reiterated that the Palestinian Authority (PA), which controls the occupied West Bank, cannot be in charge of Gaza.
“I will not allow the entry into Gaza of those who educate for terrorism, support terrorism and finance terrorism. Gaza will be neither Hamas-stan nor Fatah-stan,” Netanyahu said in a statement translated from Hebrew.
Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas is also the chairman of Fatah.
UN Urged To Act Quickly On Ceasefire Draft Resolution
Also on Tuesday, the Palestinian Ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour disclosed that the Arab and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) groups have circulated a UN General Assembly draft resolution “to have the largest number possible of countries voting in favour and it looks promising.”
“Our effort is to bring an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, and in our resolution, it also refers to the letter of the secretary general invoking Article 99 in which he asked for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. There is almost a global consensus on that call,” Mansour said while speaking from the UN in New York.
The US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Friday calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and a return of all hostages held in Gaza.
“There might be some amendments who are still insisting to politicise the subject. We are determined [to] oppose these amendments. We believe we will prevail with almost the entire international community in calling for a humanitarian ceasefire,” he said.
Meanwhile, U.S Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez, a New Mexico Democrat, also reiterated a call for a ceasefire in the conflict.
“Today, I once again call for a negotiated ceasefire consistent with my earlier statement of November 19, 2023,” Leger Fernandez said in a statement.
“I called then for additional actions to ‘release all the hostages, address the humanitarian crisis, and protect all civilians from violence — Palestinian and Israeli,” she stressed.
She added, “Given the ongoing, devastating loss of civilian lives and the humanitarian crisis, those actions must include a ceasefire and a path to peace.”
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