Featured image above shows Palestinians escaping from Israel’s airstrikes, bombardments, and ground attacks in Gaza. (Credit: Embassy of Palestine)

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• EDD K. USMAN | Twitter: @edd1819 | Instagram: @bluestar0910 | Facebook: SDN — SciTech & Digital News

MANILA — More medical equipment, medicines and other supplies are needed for the embattled Palestinians in the Gaza Strip with the Israeli bombardment having no end in sight.

Latest count based on news reports citing Gaza health officials put the number of those killed at over 35,000 people, and tens of thousands of wounded.

With Rafah about to become another scene of Israeli-engineered deaths and destruction, at least hundreds more casualties and buildings, including religious, health and civilian structures could occur again like in Gaza.

In relation with this, Palestinian Ambassador to the Philippines Saleh A.F. Mohammad has appealed for humanitarian assistance.

“I call on the Government of the Philippines, the Philippine Red Cross (PRC), non-government organizations (NGOs) to participate in supplying medical supplies for the treatment of the wounded, as we all as all other relief materials, medical equipment for the few remaining functioning hospitals now running out of basic necessities because of Israel’s continued bombardment.”

It can be recalled the Philippines had voted favorably in December 2023 on a United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, standing with 153-member states in support.

Philippine Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN Antonio Lagdameo read a statement on December 12 in New York:

“We are deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The Philippines believes that a humanitarian ceasefire is crucial to halt the loss of life and suffering. This ceasefire is a necessary step to facilitate the delivery of urgent humanitarian aid to all affected civilians, irrespective of their affiliation.”

Earlier, the ambassador thanked the Philippines, recalling it was among the countries that recognized the Palestinian state in its infancy.

He also pointed out that Palestine is the cradle of Christianity, and it hosts the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in East Jerusalem, a pilgrimage destination for Christians across the world, not the least Filipino pilgrims.

He also thanked the Philippines for accepting many Palestinians, many of them married to Filipinos.

Relative to the dire plight of Palestinians, this year on May 15 marks the 76^th Anniversary of “Al-Nakba”, during which over 750,000 Palestinian infants, toddlers, women, and elderly men were forcibly expelled from Historical Palestine.

For those who have been living under the rock since 1947, “Al-Nakba” is an Arabic word which means “The Catastrophe”, and it refers to the enduring tragedy in Historical Palestine that took place between 1947 to 1948.

It was the period when majority of Palestinians were forcibly uprooted and expelled from their homes and lands in Historical Palestine and, with no alternative, escaped in fear for their lives as a result of what Palestinians described as a “systematic campaign of terror and death perpetrated by Zionist militias and other forces.”

The Palestinian envoy what happened in the Day of Al-Nakba.

“Thousands of innocent Palestinian men, women, children and elderly persons in villages, towns and cities throughout the land were (subjected) to a criminal act that meets the contemporary definition of the crime of Ethnic Cleansing,” he recalls.

He said that of the 1.4 Palestinians living in Historical Palestine prior to 1948, more than 750,000 became refugees in parts of Palestine and in neighboring countries, namely, Jordan, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic. Only 15 percent were able to stay put in their homelands within the Green Line.

The Palestinian diplomat recalled further that more than 531 Palestinian villages and towns out of 1,300 were destroyed, and at least 11 residential neighborhoods were evicted and/or destroyed by the Zionist militias and gangs as they mercilessly terrorized them.

It can be recalled that Irgun, a marauding Jewish/Zionist group which The New York Times described “as a terrorist organization”, of which its last commander in chief (1943-1948) was Menachem Begin, Israel’s first prime minister, was one of the chief perpetrators of Al-Nakba.

An underground military group formed in 1931, Irgun terrorized Palestinians no-end, killing them as it sought to establish a Jewish State in Historical Palestine.

Many Filipinos, perhaps, do not know that Palestinians are not all Muslims. In a population census conducted by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) in 2017 showed that “47,000 Palestinian Christians are living in Palestine – with reference to the Occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip”, according to a report on https://www.twn.my website.

Ambassador Mohammad pointed out that “the majority of the Palestinian Christians were among the most affected,” in what he described as “the Israeli systematic ethnic cleansing plan, with most of them in the diaspora such as Chile and other Latin American countries as well as the United States.”

He said the number of Palestinian Christians who escaped to Chile alone runs to over 500,000.

The Palestinian ambassador said the Zionists “looted and pillaged” homes and neighborhoods at gunpoint, as they perpetrated “all forms of brutal attacks and intimidation of the population to usurp their fortunes and belongings while also forcing them to seek refuge outside Palestine.”

He continued: “The Zionist gangs/militias committed at least 28 massacres against the Palestinian people during the events of Al-Nakba, the most prominent of which was the massacre in Deir Yassin Village where at least 107 Palestinians were murdered, in addition to rape, mass killings and violence committed indiscriminately.”

Ambassador Mohammad pointed out the crimes committed by the Zionists “during Al-Nakba served the objective of the expulsion of the largest possible number of Palestinians, and the acquisition by force of as much Historical Palestine as possible, either by murdering and causing physical harm to the sovereign and indigenous population, or by intimidating them and spreading terror amongst them.”

Al-Nakba, never-ending Zionist-engineered Palestinian suffering

As a largely blind world, especially governments of the United States and many European Union member-nations, continue to be deaf, blind, and mute to the sufferings of thousands of Palestinians, Zionist & extremist leaders of Israel led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continue to carry on their revenge campaign against Palestinians since the 7th of October 2023.

Israel as it often says has the right to defend itself as Netanyahu’s Israeli Defense Force (IDF) continues the carnage in the Gaza Strip.

But the Palestinian ambassador strongly disagreed.

“Israel in Palestine has no right to defend themselves as being an occupation authority, instead, is obliged to protect the people they occupy as all international laws have mandated,” he emphasized.

On the other hand, observers commented that “Israel can’t justify its crimes against the Palestinian people as ‘self-defense.'”

“In fact, the scene in Gaza shows a clear power asymmetry between the Palestinian people fighting for their freedom and the Israeli occupying forces.”

They said the Palestinians are defending their existence based on their right, granted by international human rights law, while the Israeli occupying forces continue their indiscriminate bombardment without an atom of regard for non-combatants and civilian buildings and structures.

Ambassador Mohammad laid down some of the ongoing ramifications of Al-Nakba:

• Today, 5.8 million Palestinian refugees are registered in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) living in refugee camps.
• Majority of Palestinians either live in exile, as refugees and in the diaspora, and are denied their right to return.
• Israel, the occupying power of Palestinian lands, continue its cruel denial of the rights to return to their homeland.
• Evidence of mass murder of Palestinians perpetrated by Zionist mlitias can still be found — like the Tantura Village to the south of Haifa.
• Israeli occupation’s brutal and inhuman illegal military blockade of the Gaza Strip continued.
• Since May 15th 76 years ago, before the Israel-Hamas war triggered by the 7th of October, “Israel,” the Palestinian Embassy said, “has killed over 100,000 Palestinian martyrs, while arbitrarily detaining over a million Palestinians, including women, children, and elderly.”
•  The current war, according to Palestinian health authorities said Israel has killed 34,000 Latest is over 35,000) Palestinian civilians, majority of whom are children and women, while 85,000 have been injured because of the brutal and indiscriminate Israeli war machines. Deaths and injuries continue to pile up.
• Israel’s scorched earth military policy demolished 563 schools, more than 263,400 housing units, 195 heritage sites, 208 mosques, and three churches.

Palestinians’ official position and demand

Among the Palestinians people’s demand, according to Ambassador Mohammad:

• Call on the international community’s obligation to recognize Al-Nakba as a historical fact and a reality with legal and political ramifications that amount to the crime of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people aimed at establishing an exclusively Jewish state.
• The international community is morally responsible to recognize the suffering and plight of the Palestinian people, and also bears the historical responsibility for plight of the Palestinian people because of its endorsement and adoption of a plan to partition Palestine in disregard to the wishes and demands of the sovereign people of Palestine.
• To uphold international law, the international community must confront Israel’s defiance and challenge its assumed impunity and find the will t9 do what is necessary to uphold international law.
• The High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions are obligated to take practical steps to ensure respect of the Conventions in the occupied Palestinian territory in line with Common Article I of the Conventions.
• Another Nakba is being repeated unless the international community come together to stop it from happening by implementing the obligations and responsibilities under the United Nations Charter and all other relevant provisions of international law.

Ambassador Mohammad emphasized the importance of stopping the current bloodshed “and open a path for genuine peace and security by ending Israel’s occupation and pursuing justice through the International Court of Justice (ICC) and an independent State of Palestine should be established on the 1967 boarders with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

As Palestinian people are locked in the biggest open-air prison on Earth, he called on world leaders to push Israel, the occupying power, to open and withdraw from Rafah borders to allow the passage of relief convoys bringing food supplies and other necessities. (√)

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