The appeals issued by the UN must be respected!

 

Statement by Giorgos Loukaides, AKEL Parliamentary Representative, after the meeting of the Parliamentary Foreign and European Affairs Committee

31 October 2023

At this very moment an ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinian people is taking place in Gaza. Innocent children and women are being murdered on a mass scale in the name of ‘cleaning up’ Hamas from occupied Gaza.

As AKEL we have once again conveyed to the Israeli Ambassador the position we have expressed on many many occasions: The need for an immediate ceasefire, for the unhindered provision of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian civilians who are currently trapped and besieged in Gaza. We demanded from the Israeli Ambassador to convey the need to respect the appeals issued by the UN, the Secretary General of the UN himself and the overwhelming majority of the international community.

We demanded that an opportunity for peace be given. Only then will both peoples benefit. Namely, the Palestinian people who are suffering from the ongoing occupation, the colonisation and ethnic cleansing, who are suffering from an apartheid system. But also that the people of Israel will feel security and real peace in the region. This serves, we believe, the peoples of the wider region too, as well as the whole of humanity.

We, as we have always done with consistency, cannot turn a blind eye or pretend when an injustice and a crime is being committed by anyone and against whoever. Just as we have denounced in the strongest possible terms the atrocities and terrorist attacks committed by Hamas, we cannot but continue to denounce the occupation and colonisation. We cannot but condemn the violation of international law, of international humanitarian law, as the UN – but not only the UN – has been doing for many years.

Those forces and circles who are essentially patting Israel and the far-right Netanyahu government on the back and supporting it in this ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide, which is being committed against the Palestinian people, are doing a worst possible service to our country.

This stand will not only not bring peace, but as history itself has shown, it will ultimately reinforce the vicious cycle of violence against both Israelis and Palestinians.