Adnan Abu Alhaija, Palestine’s Ambassador to India, has expressed hope that the “humanitarian truce” between Hamas and Israel, which ends on November 29, could be extended to a few more days to help establish peace in the region.
Mr. Alhaija was here on Wednesday to attend a function at which an award in memory of former IUML State president Panakkad Syed Mohammedali Shihab Thangal was presented to writer C. Radhakrishnan. IUML State president Panakkad Syed Sadikali Shihab Thangal presented the award. The Ambassador also called for India’s support to play a mediator’s role between Palestine and Israel to establish the State of Palestine and the land of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.
“Hope we won’t go back to a war again. Hope we will manage to extend the humanitarian truce, leading later to a ceasefire. The international community should not forget that peace process should be there, and a state of Palestine should exist as soon possible. If you leave it to this extreme government [in Israel], it will never think of giving any right to the Palestinians. Our struggle will continue,” he told the media.
Attending the award ceremony, he said that what happened on October 7 was not an “action”, but a “reaction” to Israeli’s brutal aggression on the Palestinian people, especially those on the Gaza strip who had been living for 17 years in an open prison, in disastrous situation under poverty without any action of the international community. The event also marked the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.
“Hamas is not a terrorist organisation, but freedom fighters fighting occupation. The occupiers should leave our home. We should be living like any other country in the world in peace.”
The poverty before October 7 was 70% in Gaza strip, he said. “The Israeli genocide has led to the death of 14,128 people. As many as 6,800 are still under the rubble of buildings. Altogether more than 20,000 people have been killed in over 50 days. As many as 33,000 have been injured, most of them children and women. Those displaced from their homes are 1.7 million,” Mr. Alhaija pointed out.
Up to now, around 400 Israeli soldiers too had been killed, and another 1,000 people injured officially. He said that some of the Israeli soldiers were found to be afraid to continue the battle or aggression against Gaza. “Some of them have run away from work. They have been pushed out. Officers have run away with their units,” he claimed.
Mr. Alhaija, said that the international community was responsible to solve the Israel-Palestine issue in accordance with UN Security Council and the General Assembly resolutions. Otherwise, it would not be the last war in the region. The Ambassador said that 5,840 children, 3,920 women, 205 medical cadres, 22 civil defence personnel, and 66 journalists, including six women, had been killed there so far. 66 schools had been bombed. Almost 40% of buildings on the strip had been demolished completely or partially. “We don’t know how the people will face this winter, which is very cold in Palestine. We might get snowed in,” he said.
