Call for collective efforts to stand against genocide in Palestine

Ivan Zhakata Herald Correspondent

PALESTINIAN affiliate organisations and embassies in Zimbabwe have called for collective efforts to stand against the Israeli genocide in Palestine, which has seen more than 7 000 killed in Gaza with 70 percent being children.

Yesterday, staff of the Egyptian and Iranian embassies gathered at the Embassy of Palestine in Harare in support against the Israeli genocide and its colonial propaganda.

Speaking at the event, Zimbabwe Palestine Solidarity Council (ZPSC) national chairperson Cde Kwanisai Mafa said the council was deeply concerned by the intensification of the conflict and fighting between Palestine and Israel.

“The people of Palestine have for the longest time endured acts of apartheid, segregation, heinous oppression and crimes against humanity at the hands of Israel under the enabling eye of the international community including the United Nations,” he said.

“We call upon Zimbabweans, governments, students, labour movements, international community and all progressive people around the globe to take action to protect life and stop Israel’s unfolding genocide against the 2,3 million Palestinians in the Gaza open-air prison. We call upon people of the world to urgently act, despite the terrible repression, to pressure their governments to end this genocidal complicity.

“Like most people worldwide who yearn for a future where justice, freedom, and dignity lay the foundation for real and sustainable peace, we want to see an end to all violence in Palestine. But the very existence of systems of oppression, like settler-colonialism and apartheid, is the initial violence.”

Cde Mafa said they recognised that international law stipulated that people under foreign occupation and colonial regimes had a right to resist by all means, including armed resistance, so long as they do not harm civilians.

“We implore all the masses worldwide to urgently organize and demand that their institutions and elected officials call for the immediate humanitarian ceasefire, guaranteed by the UN, immediate entry to Gaza for life-saving humanitarian needs and lifting the siege on Gaza, and UN protection for the 2.3 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” he said.

Mr Vivo Chikanda of the Zimbabwe Institute of Diplomacy called on the UN Security Council to immediately act and stop the Israeli genocide in Palestine.

“There can never be justice in this world, freedom and independence if the people of Palestine are not free. The Palestinian are fighting for sovereignty, peace, independence and liberation of their own country,” he said.

Sheikh Henry Balakazi of the Supreme Muslim Council of Zimbabwe condemned the atrocities in Palestine.

“We believe that the Palestinian people are fighting for their right to have their self-determination and by doing so they are fighting on the side of God,” he said. “For those who fight on the side of God, God promises them victory.”

Citizens Against Economic Sanctions committee member Mr Isheanesu Marima said they strongly condemn such acts of violence.

“Most of the African countries are strongly condemning the acts of the Israeli forces on the people of Palestine and this was even said at the UN General Assembly,” he said.

Egyptian ambassador to Zimbabwe Salwa Mowafi said: “We are asking for an immediate ceasefire for all the atrocities and casualties that are going on in Gaza by the Israeli military. Let us stop these massacres that are happening in Gaza.”

Dr Tamer Almassri, ambassador of the State of Palestine to Zimbabwe, said Palestinians were living in hard times of Israeli genocide.

“The Israeli and the American propaganda are saying that it is a war between Israel and Hamas and I want to say that we do not accept this logic anymore because it is not a war but aggression against the people of Palestine,” he said.

“We want everybody to participate in defending the Palestinian people and to reveal that the Israeli forces are butchering our people. The Palestinian people will continue to defend our rights to the holy land of Palestine and if they expect us to raise a white flag they will wait forever.”