Intervention of Neoclis Sylikiotis, member of the Political Bureau of AKEL and AKEL MEP, in the European Parliament plenary debate on the “escalation of violence between Israel and Palestine”
16th July 2014, Strasbourg
Mohamed Malakeh17 months old, Ranim Judeh Abdel Ghafur also 17 months old, Abdullah Ramadan Abu Ghazal and Nidal Khalaf Al-Nawasra both five years old, Hijaziya Hamed Al-Hilu 80 years old…
An endless list – now over 190 – of dead Palestinians, children, women, elderly and disabled people, who had a name, family, home, a future …
Eight entire families have been lost! Three children of the Butts family now orphans without parents, losing 17 members of their family!
160,000 people have once again been displaced. 395,000 are without a minimum water supply, three hospitals have been attacked, 1,000 homes destroyed. ..
What else are the people waiting for when in front of their eyes war crimes are committed? What else are the EU and Mrs. Ashton waiting for to condemn this aggressive Israeli policy? What else is this newly elected Parliament waiting for? Is no one listening to the protests in the streets of European cities, but also in Israeli towns itself?
It is a shame for the EU itself and the world to accept impunity for the continuous violations of international humanitarian law and the human rights of an entire people who are subject to collective punishment.
We support the demand of the Palestinian President and call on the UN to put Palestine under international protection to stop once and for all the slaughter of this people. The first step is an immediate ceasefire from the 4th strongest army in the world that has been bombing for 7 years now a besieged people.
If the EU respects its own principles and declarations, it must immediately freeze economic and trade relations with Israel, suspend the Association Agreement until Israel stops violating Article 2 which states clearly Israel’s obligation to respect human rights. The EU Member States must implement the directives prohibiting imports into the EU of Israeli goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
We want peace for the Palestinian people, the Israeli people, all the peoples of the troubled Middle East so that no more children will be killed. To make this feasible the impunity and colonisation must end and the occupation of Palestine lifted.
Peace means freedom to Palestine.
