MAHMOUD ABBAS, President of the State of Palestine, said that his people, for almost a year now, have been “subjected to one of the most heinous crimes of our era”.  Israel is carrying out a full-scale war of genocide, a crime that so far has killed more than “40,000 martyrs in Gaza alone, and thousands remain under the rubble”, he added.  Hundreds of Palestinian families have been annihilated.  Thousands have died because of the spread of disease and shortages in medicine and water.  More than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza have left their homes multiple times in search of safety.  Dozens of people are being killed every day.  The West Bank is under daily Israeli aggression, he went on to say.  “They are building everywhere in Palestine, as if all of Palestine is theirs,” he stressed.  The Aqsa Mosque and its surroundings is the exclusive property of Muslims, and yet Israel is trying to erase that fact.  Turning to what happened on 7 October, he recalled that he immediately stressed the need to stop war.  “I condemned the killing of civilians, regardless of who they are, and regardless of what side they were on,” he said.  There is no need to detain women, children and the elderly.  But instead of “hearing the voice of reason”, the Israeli Government took advantage of what happened to launch an all-out war.

Israel today is launching a new aggression against the Lebanese people, who are now being subjected to a war of genocide, he said, condemning the aggression, and demanding that it stops immediately. Israel has reoccupied the Gaza Strip in its entirety.  “Seventy-five per cent of everything in Gaza has been fully destroyed,” he added.  The international community must immediately impose sanctions on Israel.  “The massacres, the crimes, the genocide that Israel has been perpetrating against our people since its inception in 1948 to this very day will not go unpunished; there is no statute of limitations,” he stressed.  But despite repeated calls, the world has not succeeded in obliging Israel to stop this war of genocide and its war crimes against innocent civilians.

The United States has obstructed draft resolutions three times at the Security Council demanding Israel to observe a ceasefire, he went on to say.  “The US alone stood and said:  ‘No, the fighting is going to continue’,” he added.  It furnished Israel with the deadly weapons that it used to kill thousands of innocent civilians, including children and women.  This is the United States, the very country that was the only member in the Security Council that voted against granting the State of Palestine full membership in the United Nations.  “We don't deserve membership in the eyes of America,” he said.  Israel does not deserve to be a member in this international organization, he went on to say.  He commended the General Assembly for adopting a resolution that called on Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories within 12 months.  He paid tribute to Turkish-American Aisha Noor, “killed by the occupation army in cold blood”.

He called for a comprehensive and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the military aggressions and attacks by terrorist settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, he said.  Humanitarian aid must be delivered throughout Gaza while Israel fully withdrawals from the enclave.  “We will not allow a single centimeter of Gaza to be taken,” he warned, demanding the return of all those who have been displaced.  He also underscored the need to protect the work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and other humanitarian organizations.  “We cannot fight Israel, and we don’t want to fight, but we want protection,” he said. The Palestinian people must have authority over all Palestinian territories in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Eastern Jerusalem, as has been stipulated by international law.  “We want a solution that will protect both countries, the State of Palestine and the State of Israel, so that they can coexist in peace, stability and security,” he said.