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Ivan Zhakata Herald Correspondent
PALESTINIAN Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Tamer Almassri, has joined the fight against drug and substance abuse by youths in Zimbabwe.
Ambassador Almassri yesterday attended the belated commemorations of the National Youth Day held at Glen View 1 High School in Harare, where he was the guest of honour.
The celebrations ran under the theme, “Building our youth for tomorrow”.
It was organised by Mr Tinashe Ngirandi, a Zimbabwean representative in the SADC Youth Parliament in collaboration with the Junior Parliament and councillors from Harare and Chitungwiza.
The commemorations were held in tandem with the launch of the Students Anti-Drug Abuse Campaign in Harare.
Speaking at the occasion, Ambassador Almassri urged students and young adults to desist from drug and substance abuse.
He also encouraged them to be drivers of development and positively change their communities.
Ambassador Almassri urged the youths to fight drug abuse and encouraged them to concentrate on their education as a weapon to success and development.
“Education is key to your success and as such, it is important to resist drugs and all forms of bad behaviour so that you will have a bright future.
“As Palestine, we have resisted drugs which were being channelled to our young people in schools and universities.
“I am proud to say that Palestine has one of the highest literacy rates in the Middle East despite being under illegal occupation by apartheid Israel. Palestine also has the highest percentage of PhD holders.”
Ambassador Almassri also called for the removal of economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe, saying they adversely affect ordinary people. He equated the sanctions to collective punishment.
Meanwhile, Palestine has pleaded with the international community to provide international protection for the undefended Palestinian people from the unrelenting Israeli-sponsored terrorism and incitement.
Ambassador Almassri said the bloodletting scenes of Israeli-Jewish terrorist militias in Huwara, destroying the lives of every discoverable Palestinians and burning homes, cars, trees, and animals to ash and rubble, were sickening and unprecedented in scale and ferocity.
The Huwara carnage comes a few weeks after Israeli officials expanded access by terrorist groups to weaponry.
Ambassador Almassri said Israeli-Jewish terrorist groups chanted, “death to Arabs” and danced on the rubble of burned homes and dead bodies, and injured Palestinians, while protected by Israeli occupying forces.
“This Jewish settler terrorism is State-sponsored, it is financially, diplomatically, and politically facilitated and supported by every branch of Israel’s government and celebrated by Israeli officials,” Ambassador Almassri said.
“The State of Palestine holds Israel and Israeli officials fully responsible for settler terrorism and warns of the inevitable violent consequences. “Settler terrorist groups are an extension of the government, an extension of the State, not a repudiation of it.
“Terrorist groups and Israeli officials work hand in glove to advance the criminally declared policies since Nakba, including Jewish supremacy, ethnic cleansing, and the eventual displacement and replacement of the Palestinian people. The Nakba never ended nor has Israel’s brutality, terrorism, and systematic displacement of the Palestinian people.”
Ambassador Almassri said the international community must also hold Israeli officials and terrorist settlers accountable for their crimes.
Online Reporter