The interview of Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the State of Palestine to Azerbaijan, Nassir Abdul Kareem Abdul Raheem, with APA regarding the recent events
- For several days now, what is happening in the Middle East region, more specifically, what is happening in Gaza between Israel and Palestine, is on the agenda and is causing serious concern in the international community. My first question is related to Azerbaijan's position on this conflict. A few days ago, an emergency meeting on the situation in Gaza was held at the level of the Council of Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Jeddah, where the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan also delivered a speech. How do you assess the position of Azerbaijan in general?
Azerbaijan's position on this issue has been acceptable for a long time. We are talking about the Palestinian issue, the occupation of Palestinian cities, and Azerbaijan's position on these issues is commendable. Azerbaijan constantly supports Palestine's struggle to achieve its own state and independence with East Jerusalem as its capital. Thus, the position of Azerbaijan, Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov's speech at the extraordinary meeting of OIC Foreign Ministers coincides with the long-standing position of Azerbaijan, which has always supported the position of Palestine based on international legitimacy, international law, and UN resolutions. It is commendable that Azerbaijan always defends its principles, international law and international legitimacy. Azerbaijan, we and the whole civilized world understand that we will live in a world ruled by a jungle-like what is happening in Palestine. Therefore, of course, we are satisfied with Azerbaijan's position.
And now as we see, everybody sees on TV screens a campaign of genocide against the Palestinian people. What is going on today, in the 21st century inside Gazza, inside Palestine, the way scorched earth policy, carpet bombing of residential areas, you know, civilian residential areas, wiped them out, imposing dislocation, enforcing dislocation of the population of one million two hundred thousand people from the cities, towns, and villages that they have been living in, to move them to another location. And what is Israil trying to do is ethnically cleanse them, because it is trying to push them out of Gazza, to send them either to Egypt or to Jordan which both countries, including the Arab League, and OIC state members they all are against it. Because if Israel succeds this, it will create another "Nakba" for the Palestinains. Nakhba is 1948 diposition of Palestininas of their own towns, houses and villages. It is international community needs to apply the principles that are enshrined in UN Charter and to impose it equally, not selectively. It seems the powers on this planet, mainly our friends in the West they are selective and imposing those values of whether it is UN Charter, wheter it is international humanitarian law in certain areas and excluding the others from the implementation of these principles. It should apply to everyone and eveywhere no matter what their ethnicity is, no matter what their religion is, or their nationalities. So, this is the way to end the conflict, to impose, let Israel deal the consequences of breaking international law year after year, day after day, commiting war crimes. Actually what is going on is a war crime. I mean before talking about this last episode of violence, since 1967 Israel is occupying Palestine based on the UN resolutions and international legitimacy. It is long, the lenghtiest military occupation on this planet in modern human history. Humans never experience this long of militray occupation. Humans never experience this long of a military occupation and the military occupation. This by itself is to maintain this long is a war crime to build settlements which are basically actually this is euphemism for colonies. To build settlements which are basically colonism, illegal colonism, building them inside the occupied Palestinian territories are war crimes. It is a plethore. If I start to point them to you I will not end, the multiple violations of internatioanl law and war crimes, and this is not opinion, this is a fact by international law. It is not the opinion of the Palestinians or Palestinian ambassador, this is the fact based on the international law. What we see now since the 7th of October, Israel and its patrons are trying to portray as if history started on 7th of October, Saturday. It did not. They have to put it on context. The context is that we had what Israel faced on saturday, 7th of October is just part of what it has been imposing and inflicting on the total Palestinians from 1948 for 75 years till now. So, international community needs to have stance, need to be consistent and need to stop being selective in applying international law on this part of the world and forgeting the rest of the world. So, this is the solution and force Israel to end its occupation. We did not have all these thousands of people to die, innocent civilians to die and hundreds who died in Israel. we did not all this if we had peaceful resolution , if Israel is willing to recognize the right of the Palestinians to exist in freedom and their own independent state based on international law, we would not have that we whould have saving thousands of lives instead of getting conflict like this. Palestine recognizes Israel in 1993, recognized as a state but what we had in return, Israel does not recognize Palestine as a state, they do not recognize, they refuse to recognize against the opinion of more than two thirds of member states in the United Nation, against the UN. So, this is what needs to apply by the international community needs to do is to force Israel to face the consequences of its illegal actions and violations in the occupied palestinian territories. It has to face these consequences when it fears that the world is dealing with that equally like with any other state then we will start reaching final settlement to this question. Because the Israel would understand that it has to obey what applies to others not to stay impunity, live in impunity outside the perimeters of international law.
These countries that have the power in the United Nations, particularly in the West need to stand and they need to be relevant and consistent with the charter they had participated alighting about international law, about international humanitarian law. And we are saying this again it is not just an opinion, it is a conclusion that many international human rights organizations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli organizations or human rights organizations concluded that what Israel is applying is a racist segregation system inside occupied Palestinian territories. You imagine if you are here in the city of Baku, you are an indigenous, you were born here and this is a city that you, your father was born, grandfather was born and someone comes then, Israel comes like the city of Hebron in the West Bank and they plant in the middle of the city, a colony with a city of 300000. Palestinians were not allowed to go through this street. The settlers, the Jewish settlers are allowed to go through the streets. There are roads in the city that Palestinian cars aren't allowed to go through these roads. This is segregation and they apply Israeli civil law inside the occupied Palestinian territory, which is recognized by everyone. Israeli President Isaac Herzog blames the entire Palestinian people for what happened and says that the punishment should be applied to the Palestinian people. In my opinion, this is a call for genocide by the state of Israel. They do not see us as equal people, they treat us as if they are lower than them, inhumane. The point is that the solution is to end the occupation, and the solution is not possible without the UN exercising its moral authority by forcing Israel to face the consequences of all its violations of international law. It must have consequences. Western countries say they are in favor of a two-state solution, very well, but when it comes to recognizing Palestine, they don't, but they recognize Israel.
We don't accept targeting innocent civilians, no matter who they are, the innocent civilians shouldn't be targeted, whether whoever the party that is targeting. But my point is that we have to reach to the crux of the matter to the ailment not to deal with the symptoms. What I am saying is that HAMAS was created 30 years ago as a result of the continuation of the Israeli occupation. If there was no Israeli occupation, Hamas most probably wouldn't have been founded because there would be no reason for it to be found. So this is my point, but targeting civilians is definitely we are against targeting civilians by enemies and we don't condone it. It has always been our position.
- This morning, there was a briefing by the opposition leader of Israel, Yair Lapid that I watched, and later read an interview by a former high-level military official from Israel, who said that maybe after defeating Hamas, the best solution, the best way for Gaza is to restore the control Palestinian state there and even Mr. Lapid going further said that international community should help the Palestinian state to take control in Gaza. So this kind of approach may give a kind of hope that in future maybe some kind of dialogue, peaceful dialogue between sides...
- It depends on how the Israeli government will be. But under the current conditions, it is difficult to imagine that the current government of Israel, the ruling elites in Israel, will now fulfill the agreements that the previous leaderships signed with the Palestinians, with the Palestinian leadership. They don't believe in that, they believe in resettlement, forced displacement of Palestinians, resettlement somewhere else, and they do everything. Everything they do is contrary to even the most primitive values of humanity.
It is very difficult to achieve any meaningful agreement and peace with the current leadership of Israel that has this view. Because they don't believe us. Netanyahu himself was against the Oslo Accords of 1993 and spoke out against a two-state solution.
Unfortunately, in the current circumstances, with this ruling coalition, it is difficult to achieve anything meaningful with Israel. Not because of us, but because of them.
- Opinions are heard that the Arab countries do not support the Palestinians enough. For example, these days, information and images were spread in the media about the fact that Egypt did not open the Rafah crossing point in Gaza to its civilian Palestinians, but instead strengthened the point and placed concrete slabs there. If we approach the issue with the principle that civilian human life is above all else and must be protected by all means, how normal are these steps? There were people who wanted to pass through that checkpoint to Egypt in the first days of the war...
I think this is a misconception. I think they all, the people are very intrinsically pro-Palestine. I know that very well. Egypt and Jordan had a peace accord since 1978. It has been very long time they had a peace agreement with Israel but still 99.9 percent of the Egyptian population are very cold towards Israel.
But my question is about Rafah...
I am coming to the question about Rafah. Just yesterday the OIC issued a statement. Almost half of the members are Arab countries. This is a very strong statement regarding what is going on in Palestine, as Minister Jeyhun Bayramov was also participating in the meeting. So coming back to Rafah. What the Egyptians are afraid of that Israel is trying to evict these 1.2 or 1.1 million Palestinians from north of Gaza to Egypt. If they reach Egypt it will be very hard for them to go back to their own towns. Palestinians and the Gaza Strip are already refugees, descendants of the war of 1948, 70 percent of the population. They want to ethnically cleanse half of the population of Gaza, throw them either in Egypt or in Jordan and Egypt in the Sinai desert. These people were living in fertile lands and villages which are green and they want to throw them in the Sinai Desert with no prospect of going back or when to go back to their homes where their homes are already demolished, to their homes and to their villages and cities and towns.
People already dying there...
The people of Israel define what's happening in Israel - moving these people out of the north of Gaza as a war crime. The President of Egypt suggested that if Israel is sincere in this matter, he can create a temporary shelter for them in Israel - in the Nagev. As an occupying party, you must protect them under international law. If they are placed in the Nagev desert, there will be a real prospect of their return home. But if you send them to Egypt or Jordan, how likely is it that they will be sent back to their homeland with such a government? We know this from our own experience. I agree with you, it could have saved innocent people, but it could have serious political consequences and escalate the war in the region. The people who were removed from their homes and thrown into the desert will think about showing armed struggle against the invader, which will have an impact on Egypt, and Egypt may participate directly in the war.
- I want to ask about the shooting of a hospital in Gaza a few days ago. Israel and Hamas accuse each other in this matter. We know that this news was received very seriously, even harshly, by the international community. We read the news that 500 civilians were killed in this explosion. However, I will admit one thing, the footage of the explosion and the photos from the scene created some doubts about the scale of this explosion. Obviously, in war, disinformation also spreads very quickly.
A few minutes after the explosion, Israeli social media platforms, X, Telegram and Facebook, shared that they were behind the explosion. But then the number of victims of the explosion began to be announced, these numbers are quite high. In fact, hundreds of people were killed in this blast, whatever the number may be. Then they started deleting their posts and comments from social media. Later, they said that it was a rocket launched by "Islamic Jihad". Now tell me, how did they determine it was an "Islamic Jihad" or Hamas missile in such a short period of time? Was there any sign on the rocket that it belonged to Hamas or Islamic Jihad? There are many gaps in Israel's story. No one has ever seen a munition of this serious power in Hamas or any other jihadist organization or group.
This is very important to know, Israel, more than a week ago, called the 21 hospitals in Gaza, asked them to evacuate, the leaders of these hospitals, doctors they refuse, they said "we have a war, in a war situation, we have sick people, we have patients who need you know, constant care who needs people who are you know, having you know, need some kidney treatment or so. There are many patients not to mention that endangered and the people, the casualties of war, of the bombardment." So they refused, all the 21 hospitals refused to evacuate. Before this explosion took place, three or four days before that Israel dropped two projectiles at the hospital, but it did not create damage, it did not destroy anything. The second day they called by telephone the chief doctor in the hospital. They told him "We asked you to leave and evacuate the hospital. Why didn't you leave?
Let an international team come and investigate, we have no problem.
The Israeli side have a problem and when you go to Israel history about telling what really happened in cases like this, you just need to go to the case of Al Jazeera journalist Shirin Abu Akleh, which is not too far away. It did not happen in a situation of war. It did not happen when you surrounded with the fog of War, things are confusing and this coming. It happened in broad daylight early morning with the sun was shining and where so many witnesses were there and an Israeli sniper shot her dead intentionally and Israel for months kept denying its responsibility. CNN, which is not pro-Palestinian, but pro- Israel sent an investigative team there and they concluded that its Israel and when so many international groups investigated this incident after months, Israel said probaly it is one of our soldiers shot. Probably. Israel has a long history of this.
- Well, the killing of Israeli children, they were killed, there are many facts, photos and videos.
Well, we now have about 1600 Palestinian children killed, Israel killed Palestinian child, almost on a daily basis. Palestinian children were killed because they threw some stones or something. But they gave a number of 40 Israeli children killed. This number by itself, no matter how much it has been exaggerated, it is by itself shocking. Any innocent life, especially children when they are killed it is shocking for any human. They made up this number and then they thought, "Well this is not enough. We have to say they were beheaded". But we didn't hear Isis or Al Qaeda mass beheading kids. It is meant to create a picture of beastly inhuman beings who should be terminated. And here we come to the speech of the Israeli president when he said, "our war is not just only with Hamas, but is against the whole Palestinian population, civilian population".
- We talked about all these political solution negotiations, the two-state principle, etc. But I would like to ask you as a diplomat. What practical steps should be taken to stop this bloody tragedy in the region as soon as possible and save more lives?
Let the people, who have been two weeks under bombardment have the humanitarian aid.
By the way, Biden announced that Israel agreed to allow humanitarian aid to get in Gaza.
But the aid has not got in. We need to wait till Friday. We'll wait until Friday to see if it gets done. For 17-18 days, people have had no water, food, or medicine. Hospitals in Palestine have stopped working. They can no longer function. The situation in Gaza is quite dystopian. The quickest approach to minimize and resolve the suffering of civilians is to stop the bombing and allow humanitarian aid to enter.
P.S. APA recognizes the right of response of the Ambassador of Israel to Azerbaijan and is ready to have an interview with Mr. George George Deek.
Photo Orkhan Karimov ©️ APA Group
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