76 years after Nakba, the Palestinian people are facing genocide

 

15 May 2024, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

In 1948 the Palestinian people were faced with the destruction of their way of life and social network, with the massacres that were committed and with the uprooting of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, with the usurpation of their property, with what the Palestinian people call the Nakba – the Catastrophe.

Seventy-six years later and the State of Israel has been carrying out for seven months an all-out destruction of the Gaza Strip, while the Palestinians in both the West Bank and East Jerusalem are been attacked too. In front of the eyes of all humanity, the Palestinian people are being subjected to an ongoing genocide by the Israeli military machine, which has reduced hospitals, schools, universities, museums, cultural centres and at least 70% (over 300,000) of the housing units to an amorphous mass.

The relentless bombardment with the bombs manufactured by the US and its allies, which continue to arm Israel, has killed over 35,000 Palestinians – over 14,500 of them children, 9,500 women, and over 77,000 have been injured. The State of Israel has flagrantly violated every principle of international humanitarian law by depriving 2.5 million people of all the elementary necessities of life: water, food, medicine, fuel, shelter, as well as education and culture.

In their statements the Israeli Prime Minister and their Ministers and military treat the Palestinians as subhuman beings and threaten to use nuclear weapons to completely annihilate an entire people.

For decades the State of Israel has grown accustomed to impunity and support from its powerful allies. Today it stands before the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide. In the streets across the whole world, the peoples are demanding a ceasefire and an end to the ongoing genocide, demanding the recognition of a Palestinian State.  At the General Assembly of the United Nations just a few days ago, 143 out of 193 member states voted in favour of the Palestinian State becoming a full member of the UN.

AKEL expresses its full solidarity and joins with everyone in the international community in demanding an end to the genocide and the immediate recognition of an independent Palestinian State on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.  With the full restoration of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the Palestinian people.

This is what humanity owes. Despite the stand of the Cypriot government and the majority of political parties, the Cypriot people, themselves victims of an invasion-occupation-the uprooting of our people as refugees, we stand in solidarity with the heroic Palestinian people.

15.05.2024