By Linus Aleke, Abuja
The the Palestine Ambassador to Nigeria, Amb. Abdullah M. Abu Shawesh, said, the tragic stories and human suffering that are affecting everyone in Gaza need to be archived and documented to forestall future occurrences.
Amb. Shawesh, who made this call while addressing a press conference in Abuja, also noted that the documentation is important not only to track down and punish the criminal Israeli leaders in the future, but also for humanity to learn lessions from the tragedy and prevent it from happening again.
Documenting the tragic stories of victims, the Palestinian envoy said, will be a step forward in helping them come out of the shock and trauma as well as to begin to recover.
He added that it will also bring the victims some justice when all and sundry treat them as human beings, not just as numbers.
The visibly angry diplomat accused Israeli authority of waging a war of starvation and pushing the Palestinian economy faster towards the already clearly ravaging disaster.
For the third month in a row, he said, Israel has refused to transfer the Palestinian clearance funds to the Palestinian Government, leaving it unable to pay its employees’ salaries and other financial obligations.
He also pointed that residents Gaza are currently forced to drink unclean well water, which is contributing to the spread of transmitted and infectious diseases, especially amid the power outage and overall water supply shortage.
Noting that starvation of civilian population as a weapon of war is prohibited, the Palestine envoy said that more than 90 per cent of the population is now suffering from acute food insecurity and many are on the brink of avoidable human-made famine.
Lamenting the complicity of western powers in the ongoing war, Amb. Shawesh said: “It is absolutely inhumane to see countries with the largest military forces in the world moving to protect shipping and trade lines in the Red Sea, but we do not see them moving or even raising their voices to stop the act of genocide taking place in the occupied Palestinian territories that we are seeing on the news. What makes matter worse, is that many of these countries are fully complicit in the ongoing genocide in Palestine by providing Israel with military means and ammunition, in addition to unconditional and unlimited political support”.
He observed that the Israeli Prime Minister’s additional goal of full control of the 14-Kilometer border between Gaza and Egypt, is a clear attempt to extend the war for more months to come to avoid his trial.
The Palestinian envoy, noted that the continuation of the war this year will translate to thousands of innocent Palestinian heading to their early graves.
“It became very clear to everyone that this devastating war is to accomplish two goals only, which are to maintain Netanyahu in his current office and to further distance himself from responsibility or October 7, and as an addition, to fill the bank accounts of the weapon producers,” he concluded.