Palestinian envoy: We need global backing, including Caribbean's

ANYONE anywhere in the world can help stop the mass killing and displacement of people in occupied East Jerusalem and surrounding lands by pressing their government to hold Israel accountable to international law.

Dr Linda Sobeh, Palestine's non-resident ambassador to Guyana, St Vincent and the Grenadines, St Lucia and St Kitts and Nevis, said that includes Caribbean people, who ought to urge their governments, and the UN by extension, to stop allowing Israel to displace, imprison and kill Palestinians in Israeli-occupied areas, without concern for international repercussions.

The Embassy of Palestine to the Caribbean hosted a virtual conference for regional media houses on Tuesday after a recent series of Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip.

On Monday morning, Israeli warplanes dropped bombs on the densely populated Gaza, killing over 227 Palestinians, including at least 61 children. This led to a response from Hamas, which directed rockets into Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial centre.

At least ten people were killed in Israel, including two children.

In the early morning of May 10, Israeli security forces forced their way into Jerusalem’s al-Aqsa mosque, reportedly firing rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades at hundreds of Palestinians there to mark Eid-ul-Fitr.

Sobeh said Palestine needs global support because Israel will remain on the offensive, while Palestinians have no intentions of leaving their homes, regardless of the outcome.

Israel, Sobeh said, has historically been treated like "a child who is above the law, protected by the international community.

"We need the international community to urge the UN, to urge Israel, urge the occupiers, to stop."

Unrest escalated once again earlier this month when anti-displacement protests across Palestine began following an Israeli Supreme Court ruling to evict six Palestinian families from a neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem.

"They are throwing against the wall all international law and threatening them with forced displacement (of all the) families," Sobeh said.

"Imagine that someone comes and force you to leave your home, just because they are there to bring settlers from all over the world and replace you and your family... where you have lived for many decades, the home of your grandparents."

She said this forcible displacement was against the Geneva Convention.

She stressed that her objections were not against Jews or Israel but Zionists, the settlers and the Israeli army, which she said is "not a defensive army but an oppressor.

"It is an army that is committing genocide against the Palestinians – my people. Israel responds by launching attacks on worshippers (in several mosques and churches) in the holiest time – in Easter, in Ramadan."

Thousands are currently living in UN schools, Sobeh said, "hoping that the schools will be away from the destruction and from the attack of the Israeli rockets. When a rocket is fired from Palestine, a hundred rockets is fired back by the Israelis.

"I am not with the killing of any human being on any side. Our lives, our homes, our lives need to be respected. We cannot remain silent.

"The attack on media buildings where many international outlets and Israel knows very well they are in this building, and they brought this building down," she said, alluding to the bombing and destruction of an 11-storey building in Gaza containing offices of Al Jazeera, the Associated Press and other news outlets.

Israel justified the attack, saying it had been evacuated after the building's owner was notified and that it was also being used by Hamas.

In addition to direct bombings, she said Palestinians in occupied areas are also subject to blockades, restricted access to medicines, electricity and other necessities.

There has been an international outpouring of support for Palestine, with people marching in cities around the world, including Washington and even Tel Aviv, for an end to the forced evictions, and bombings.

As of Wednesday, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he is "determined" to continue this operation until its aim is met, even in the face of US President Joe Biden's call for a de-escalation of hostilities in Gaza.