Palestinian FM Pleads for International Protection, Says Nation Faces ‘Existential Threat’

Wednesday, 29 November 2023 4:55 PM

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki speaks at the Security Council open debate on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, on November 29, 2023. (Photo: UN.org)

The Palestinian foreign minister has pleaded with the world to provide international protection to the Palestinian people, who "are faced with an existential threat."

Addressing a UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Gaza, Riyad al-Maliki said Israel does not seek security but wants to eliminate any chance for the creation of a Palestinian state.

“If it was, it would choose peace,” he said, adding that Israel, and this Israeli cabinet specifically considers that the strategic threat it is confronted with is Palestinian statehood.

"Our people are faced with an existential threat. Make no mistake about it. With all the talk about the destruction of Israel, it is Palestine that is facing a plan to destroy it, implemented in broad daylight," the UN website quoted him as saying.

Gaza Health Ministry spokesman warns about the “catastrophic” situation of hospitals in Gaza despite a truce.

The protection of Palestinians cannot be ensured by the occupying forces who are complicit in these crimes, he said.

“We need international protection and international action to end impunity so as to prevent the recurrence of these crimes that occur daily and in broad daylight,” he said. “What our people are enduring now is the result of the international community’s failure to provide such protection and accountability.”

He said the world must also put an end to the impunity of the Israeli regime and prosecute it over its war crimes.

Maliki said Israel is trying to intimidate those criticizing it and defending the rule of international law across the globe, including governments that consider themselves allies of Israel, the UN secretary general and UN agencies, human rights, and humanitarian organizations.

‘Massacres cannot be allowed to resume’

He touched on the ongoing Gaza truce, saying it must become a permanent ceasefire to put an end to Israeli atrocities. 

"The truce must become a ceasefire, a permanent ceasefire. The massacres cannot be allowed to resume," Maliki told the council.

“This is not a war,” he said. “This is a carnage that no one can justify. It must be brought to an end.”

 “Over 15,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel. Over 10,000 of them are women and children. They have been killed by Israel. They did not lose their life; it was taken away. No one is safe in Gaza, not the children, not the doctors, not the humanitarian personnel, not the journalists, not the UN staff. They were killed at an unprecedented pace in modern history,” he said.

“Gaza has a very special place in our national history,” he said. “Its name today is how many people spell Palestine around the world. It cannot be erased. Our people cannot be uprooted from it. Its Palestinianness cannot be altered. There is no Palestine without Gaza. Gaza bleeds, Gaza suffers, Gaza aches, but Gaza lives. And Palestine lives. Free Palestine. That is the only path to peace.”

He said the siege on Gaza must also be ended and the people of the coastal strip must be allowed to return to their homes.  

Gaza faces ‘epic’ humanitarian crisis

Earlier, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the meeting that the Gaza Strip was in the midst of an "epic humanitarian catastrophe", urging the world not to look away.

"Intense negotiations are taking place to prolong the truce – which we strongly welcome - but we believe we need a true humanitarian ceasefire," he said.

The United Nations has scaled up the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza - a coastal territory of 2.3 million people - during the truce, but Guterres said the level of aid "remains completely inadequate to meet the huge needs."

"The people of Gaza are in the midst of an epic humanitarian catastrophe before the eyes of the world," he said. "We must not look away."

Guterres said “nowhere is safe” in Gaza, and noted that 80 percent of its residents have been forced from their homes.

“In a matter of weeks, a far greater number of children have been killed by [the] Israeli military operations in Gaza than the total number of children killed in any year by any party to a conflict since I’ve been secretary-general,” Guterres continues.

“It is with immense sadness and pain that I report that since the beginning of the hostilities, 111 members of our UN family have been killed in Gaza. This represents the largest loss of personnel in the history of our organization,” Guterres said.

"Meanwhile, an estimated 45 percent of all homes in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed," Guterres said, adding that the scale of death and destruction is “characteristic of the use of wide-area explosive weapons in populated areas.”

The ongoing truce in the latest conflict between Israel and Hamas was scheduled to expire early Thursday after a six-day pause in the fighting, which has seen 60 Israeli captives and 180 Palestinian prisoners released.

The truce has brought a temporary halt to the Israeli war on Gaza, which started on October 7 after Hamas’s surprise operation that caught the regime flat-footed.

Israel's air and ground campaign in Gaza has killed over 15,000 people, mostly civilians, and reduced large parts of the north of the territory to rubble.