Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the U.N. Common Meeting (UNGA) in New York Metropolis on Thursday by video hyperlink, since he and the remainder of his delegation had been denied visas to enter the USA for causes of nationwide safety.
Abbas started by claiming the Palestinian individuals within the Gaza Strip have been dealing with “a warfare of genocide, destruction, hunger, and displacement waged by the Israeli occupation forces.”
Abbas claimed Israel has “killed or injured greater than 220,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of whom are unarmed kids, ladies, and the aged.” He additional accused Israel of displacing “a whole bunch of 1000’s” and “stopping the entry of meals and medical provides, which brought on the hunger of two million Palestinians.”
“They imposed a stifling siege on a complete individuals, and destroyed greater than eighty p.c of houses, faculties, hospitals, church buildings, mosques, amenities, and infrastructure,” he continued.
“What Israel is finishing up just isn’t merely an aggression. It’s a warfare crime, and a criminal offense towards humanity,” he stated.
“Within the West Financial institution, together with in East Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Palestine, the extremist Israeli authorities continues to implement its settlement insurance policies by way of unlawful settlement enlargement,” Abbas stated.
There isn’t any “State of Palestine,” however the West Financial institution is the realm typically beneath the management of the group Abbas instructions, the Palestinian Authority (PA). He strenuously objected to Israeli growth plans that may divide the territory beneath PA management, a transfer he stated would “undermine the choice of the two-state answer in a blatant violation of worldwide legislation and related Safety Council resolutions, particularly Decision 2334.”
“Moreover, the Israeli prime minister introduced a plan for what he calls Higher Israel, which we reject and utterly deplore,” Abbas stated.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave an interview in August throughout which the interviewer, a former Israeli lawmaker named Sharon Gal, introduced him with an amulet that ostensibly contained “a map of the Promised Land.”
Gal stated the map provided a imaginative and prescient of “Higher Israel,” a time period that got here into use after the Six-Day Warfare in 1967 and referred to the territory Israel conquered whereas defending itself, together with the West Financial institution and East Jerusalem, plus the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights.
Gal requested Netanyahu if he felt related to this imaginative and prescient, and Netanyahu replied, “Very a lot.”
There was a lot debate over the following weeks about precisely what Netanyahu was saying he felt “related to.” Netanyahu’s critics seized on the Gal interview as proof he intends to beat all the West Financial institution and Gaza, subjugating or expelling the Palestinian residents, and would possibly intend to push even additional into neighboring Arab states. A number of different audio system on the UNGA made accusations about “Higher Israel” much like these made by Abbas.
When Abbas lastly acquired round to mentioning the explanation for the Gaza warfare, the Hamas assault on Israeli civilians in October 2023, he stated that “regardless of all that our individuals have suffered, we reject what Hamas carried out on the seventh of October.”
“These actions didn’t characterize the Palestinian individuals, nor do they characterize their simply wrestle for freedom and independence,” he stated.
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