Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh today urged an immediate ceasefire in Gaza after 35 days of constant Israeli bombardment that killed more than 10,000 people, most of them children, and wounded over 25,000 others.
“How many Palestinians must be killed for the war to stop? Are xix children killed every hour enough? Are four women killed every hour enough? Are more than 10,000 martyrs in 30 days enough?” he said addressing the International Conference for Gaza Relief held in Paris at the initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Are more than 25,000 people injured, and some of them may die due to lack of medicine; is a month without medicine, water, electricity or shelter enough? Is the destruction of 240,000 housing units enough,” said Shtayyeh.
“The Palestinian road of suffering did not begin on October 7, but rather it is 75 years old, in the refugee camps, in the diaspora, in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and under the siege and war in the Gaza Strip,” he said.
“The right to defend itself does not give a country the right to occupy the lands of another country. We are the victim of the occupation, and we are the ones who have the right to defend ourselves,” stressed the Prime Minister, accusing Israel of violating international humanitarian law and committing crimes against innocent people, including murder, siege, displacement and starvation, explaining that Israel’s war is not against Hamas, but against all the Palestinian people.
“What is required is to stop the war immediately so that humanitarian relief becomes meaningful, or what is the meaning of a Palestinian getting dinner and being killed the next day?” he said, adding, “The international community must move away from double standards.”
The Prime Minister called for trying the leaders of the occupying state in the International Criminal Court for the war crimes they carried out against the Palestinian people, saying, “International courts must take a clear stand to try criminals, and international humanitarian law must be indivisible.”
Source: WAFA
