The situation in Gaza did not start on Saturday; it has been preceded by 17 whole years of blockade of 2,000,000 Palestinians in an area of just 45 square kilometres.
That is, an area 200 times smaller than Cyprus.
The Palestinians remain committed to a future where every life is precious, and everyone lives in freedom and security.
The international community must understand that security, stability, and peace in the region can be achieved by ending the Israeli occupation of the land of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, along the 1967 borders, and by recognising the people’s right to independence and national sovereignty.
For 17 years, the Israeli government has been creating conditions of suffocation for the Palestinians in Gaza, where they have absolutely no rights.
The water provided to them daily by the Israelis is far less than the required amount for a healthy life, while electricity is available for only 3-4 hours a day.
If you are seriously ill in the Gaza Strip, I’m sorry, but the odds of survival are not in your favour due to inadequate medical care and the lack of medicines and treatments.
Anyone needing medical assistance must submit a request to the Israeli authorities.
After a thorough examination of the request, which takes several months, if the patient is still alive, they may be allowed to leave Gaza to receive medical care.
It is not by chance that Gaza has been named the largest ‘open-air prison’ in the world because, let’s not fool ourselves, the Palestinians living there have absolutely no rights, no freedom.
Has anyone wondered what the massive wall the Palestinians erected with so much determination is?
Did anyone see the emotion on their faces?
Has anyone questioned the purpose of this ‘wall’ there?
For so long, the world has been watching the oppression and humiliation of the Palestinians in silence and counting the dead. Dead Palestinians.
The Israeli government may have declared war now, but its war against the Palestinians began 75 years ago.
Israeli apartheid, occupation, and the international community’s complicity are the sources of all this violence.
For 75 years, Israeli occupying soldiers have dragged young Palestinians and children from their beds in pre-dawn raids and are held without charge in Israeli detention camps.
Since 1948, we have had 100,000 dead Palestinians, and from 1967 to the present, 1,000,000 Palestinians have been arrested and imprisoned, while as we speak, there are 5,000 Palestinian prisoners, including women and children.
In the past year, Israel ruthlessly escalated its military occupation with violent expulsions and home demolitions, mass killings, journalist killings, relentless sieges, and daily humiliation.
In 2023 alone, Palestinian casualties have reached 1,000.
In recent weeks, Israeli forces have conducted daily raids at Al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam and Christian holy places.
Double standards
We must put an end to the double standards.
I cannot understand how the United Nations, the organisation that signed the establishment of the State of Israel, did not react when the Israeli Prime Minister used a provocative map of the Middle East without Palestine, without even the occupied Palestinian territories, at the United Nations General Assembly.
We have repeatedly warned of the consequences of the blockade and the failure to allow the Palestinian people to exercise their legitimate right to self-determination and create their own state.
Israel’s negation of signed agreements and the failure to uphold international legality have led to the destruction of the peace process.
This is compounded by the absence of a solution to the Palestinian issue after 75 years of suffering and displacement, the continuation of double standards, the silence of the international community regarding the criminal and racist practices of Israeli occupying forces, and the perpetuation of injustice and oppression.
These are the reasons behind the explosive situation and the absence of peace and security in the region.
Peace requires justice, freedom, and independence for the Palestinian people, the return of refugees, and the full implementation of international decisions of legality.
The world must understand that security, stability, and peace in the region can be achieved by ending Israeli occupation of the land of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, along the 1967 borders, and by recognising the people’s right to independence and national sovereignty.
Oppressed people everywhere will seek their freedom.
We do not seek to tally blood and the lives that each person has lost.
We mourn the lives that have already been lost and remain committed to a future where every life is precious and all people live in freedom and security.
The Cyprus News Agency interviewed the Ambassador of the State of Palestine in Cyprus, Abdallah Attari
