Jeddah (UNA) - Ambassador Mahmoud Yahya Al-Asadi, Consul General of the State of Palestine and Dean of the Consular Corps in Jeddah, reiterated the Palestinian people's refusal to surrender to colonial schemes.
In his speech on the occasion of the 77th anniversary of the Nakba that befell the Palestinian people in 1948, he said that this occasion coincides with a systematic genocidal war and massacre waged by Israel, the occupying power, against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, its brutal and destructive aggression across the West Bank, and its colonial plan to Judaize the city of Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine, and to confiscate Palestinian lands to build colonial settlements and construct the annexation and racist isolation wall on them. This war, aggression and plan not only targets the land but also the Palestinian presence on it, and aims to empty the land of its owners and historical inhabitants and replace it with colonial settlers.
Al-Asadi added in his speech, which he delivered during the activities of the exhibition organized by the General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in cooperation with the Permanent Delegation of the State of Palestine and the Union of News Agencies of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (UNA) on Thursday, May 15, at the OIC headquarters in Jeddah, “This new-old colonial scheme that appears to us from time to time will not pass thanks to the awareness, steadfastness and determination of the Palestinian citizen despite the siege, killing, starvation, thirst and lack of treatment and medicine. The struggling Palestinian people have bid farewell during this long journey of national struggle and legendary steadfastness, hundreds of thousands of righteous martyrs. Moreover, the wounded and injured, and extended convoys of prisoners and detainees are now subjected to the most heinous types of torture in a blatant violation of international laws, in full view and silence of the masters of the international community and international policy makers, at a time when they talk about democracy and the protection of human rights.”
“It is a long journey, mixed with blood, suffering, injustice, oppression, hunger, thirst, disease, the burden of losing one’s home and residence, displacement and dispersion inside and outside the homeland. Seventy-seven years after the painful and tragic Nakba, the longest in the history of the Palestinian people and in the history of humanity, the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem are subjected to organized terrorism by Israel. Our Palestinian Authority and government are also subjected to an economic and financial blockade to prevent them from fulfilling their role and responsibility towards the Palestinian people. This is in addition to attempts to separate the Gaza Strip from the West Bank and divide it into separate islands, and to separate and isolate the city of Jerusalem from its Palestinian, Arab and Islamic surroundings to prevent the establishment of a geographically contiguous and viable Palestinian state. This is in addition to the blatant violation of Islamic and Christian holy sites alike, foremost among which is the Judaization attempts and temporal and spatial division of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque,” he continued.
“From here, from the headquarters of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which was established for the sake of Jerusalem and its preservation, we send out our highest expressions of reverence and respect to the steadfast Palestinian people, who are steadfast in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem, in exile and refugee camps. With him, we repeat what the President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, has said and repeatedly affirmed that we will not abandon our homeland and we will not leave our land. We also remember what the late President Yasser Arafat said that we will not give up an inch of the soil of Jerusalem, and there is no one in us, not from us and not among us who would give that up,” he added.
Al-Asadi called on the world, with all its countries, institutions and organizations, especially the UN Security Council and General Assembly, and the international community, headed by the United States of America, to urgently intervene and assume their historical, humanitarian and moral political responsibilities to stop the systematic war of genocide being waged against the Palestinian people and put an end to their suffering and ongoing catastrophe. He also called for support for the efforts being made to hold an international conference to ensure the success of the two-state solution conference led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
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