War on Gaza pushing entire region toward abyss: Foreign Ministry
The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Ayman Safadi, warned Saturday that the escalating Israeli Occupation war on Gaza is causing a "humanitarian catastrophe" and constitutes collective punishment for over two million Palestinians, pushing the entire region towards abyss.
Safadi stated that the international community's failure to halt the war is a failure to uphold international law, protect shared human values, and safeguard innocent civilians facing the horrors of war, unable to find shelter, food, or medical care for their children and wounded.
He emphasized that remaining silent in the face of what the people of Gaza are enduring, the destruction and war crimes, is tantamount to endorsing aggression that strips Gazans of their humanity and their right to protection. It is silence in the face of THE Israeli Occupation's blatant violations of international law.
Safadi pointed out that Palestinian civilians are no less human than the Israeli Occupation's civilians, and that the Israeli Occupation's stated objective of eliminating Hamas is killing and displacing innocent Palestinians. It will leave the region and the world grappling with the environmental, despairing, and oppressive aftermath that Israeli Occupation will turn Gaza into. It will not achieve security and will not lead to peace.
Safadi stressed that the Israeli Occupation's prevention of humanitarian aid from entering Gaza and its pressure on over a million Gazans in the north to leave their homes while its war on the Strip rages on constitutes a blatant violation of international law, international humanitarian law, and the laws of war.
Safadi affirmed the rejection of the displacement of Palestinians from their homeland and warned that any attempt by the Israeli Occupation to impose this will push the entire region further toward escalation, conflict, and expansion.
He emphasized that violence will only lead to more violence, and that war will only lead to further escalation and tension.
Safadi said that only a just and comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution, which fulfills the full rights of the Palestinian people, will protect Palestine, Tel Aviv, and the entire region from the pitfalls of violence. The Israeli Occupation will not achieve security and peace unless Palestinians achieve security and freedom in their independent state with its capital in occupied East Jerusalem on the lines of June 4, 1967.
Safadi affirmed that anyone who seeks security and peace in the region, for all its countries and peoples, must act immediately to halt the aggression on Gaza and work to create a real horizon for achieving a just and comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution.
Safadi stressed that Gaza's elders, women, and children are civilians and innocent, representing the international community's failure to protect them, which is a moral and humanitarian failure that cannot be justified under any pretext.
