KAMPALA: Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Riyad al-Malki has emphasized the horrific situation in the Gaza Strip as the Israeli war of genocide on Gaza enters its 106th day.
Addressing the Non-Aligned Movement conference in Kampala, Uganda, al-Maliki said 106 days have passed since Israel began its campaign of mass slaughter, deliberate starvation, and systematic destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
He pointed out that international system has failed to assume its legal responsibilities regarding the situation in Gaza, which allowed the genocide to continue and undermined the viability of international system.
“The international system has consistently failed to assume its responsibilities under international law and the UN Charter”, he added. “This epic failure has allowed the genocide in Gaza to continue and has undermined in strategic ways the very viability and relevance of the international system and international law.”
He said that in over 100 days, Israeli warplanes killed hu
ndreds of civilians, including 10,000 children, and nearly 10,000 people are still buried under the rubble, mostly women and children.
The Foreign Minister added that Israeli fighter jets have further massively destroyed over 70% of homes and buildings in Gaza and displaced nearly 2 million Palestinians, half of them children, he added.
Israel also killed over 115 journalists, nearly 350 health professionals, and hundreds of university professors, artists, engineers, and other professionals in the same period, he added. In this period, Israel deliberately used starvation and deprivation of water as a weapon of war, and now 4 out of 5 of the hungriest people in the world are in Gaza; there are pockets of famine in Gaza; and children are dying of dehydration, malnutrition, and hypothermia.
Meanwhile, “Israeli occupation forces are also wreaking death, destruction, and brutality at unprecedented proportions in the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem while the Israeli government is choking the Palestinian
economy and forcibly displacing hundreds of Palestinian civilians.”
He said these atrocities are happening at a time when “Israeli forces abduct thousands of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, torture, humiliate, and starve them, and subject them to unspeakable mental, physical, and even sexual abuse. These horrific abominations are done live with total impunity.”
“Israel creates more destruction than the allied forces did in Dresden over 3 years; to kill more journalists than all those killed in World War II and other destructive wars that lasted years,” he said.
FM Maliki praised the unprecedented South Africa’s genocide case against Israel before the ICJ. “South Africa had the moral clarity and courage to stand up for humanity and defend our endangered international system.”
Source: Palestine news and Information Agency – WAFA
Former Minister and MP Walid Jumblatt said today that ‘the war raging in Gaza is continuing, as is the Israeli aggression against south Lebanon, and it may last for more than a year,’ adding that ‘any talk that the war will stop and the Palestinian state will see the light, after the American president and his foreign minister remembered the Palestinian state, is useless…’
He added: ‘We are trying with House Speaker Nabih Berri, Hezbollah Secretary-General, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, and the loyal people in the country to avoid the expansion of the war and to stop it…Basically there are occupied and disputed lands and all of Hockstein’s missions in this regard have not succeeded, but we are trying from our part, knowing that the war is expanding in the region…We do not know the adventures of the Israeli mind, but if the worst happens, as in 2006, we are ready to receive our people from the south, as we did in the past, but we hope that does not happen.’
Jumblatt continued: “With regards to internal pol
itical matters, there are no indications of electing a president, but we succeeded, through the efforts of the Democratic Gathering, to extend the term of the Army Commander and we hope to appoint a Chief-of-Staff in the near future.”
Jumblatt’s words came during his tour today in the city of Aley, where he visited the home of Democratic Gathering bloc member, MP Akram Chehayeb, and the Progressive Socialist Party’s Interior Branch where a wide meeting was held in the presence of MP Chehayeb, Mayor of Aley Wajdi Mrad, and a number of dignitaries.
Source: National News Agency – Lebanon
