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Palestinian Authority (PNA) President Mahmoud Abbas assured his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that Palestinians will never leave Gaza and the West Bank, despite Israel’s attempts to force them to leave their homeland.
“The Palestinians will never leave Gaza, any more than they will leave the West Bank. This is important, because [o primeiro-ministro israelita, Benjamin] Netanyahu is trying to do this, expel the Palestinians from their land,” said the Palestinian president during his meeting with Putin, on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan.
The BRICS joint statement mentions the war in Ukraine only once, and only in point 36.
Abbas acknowledged that the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas took control of the enclave in 2007, “after a coup d’état,” but stressed that the Palestinian National Authority never saw Gaza “as a foreign body.”
“Gaza is an inherent part of the Palestinian state, so we will work to end the Israeli occupation”the Palestinian leader stressed.
Abbas once again described the The war in Gaza as “a tragedy” that has caused almost 43,000 deathsmore than 100,000 injured and 10,000 missing, in addition to having destroyed 70% of the economic and social infrastructure of the enclave.
The Palestinian president also called for a ceasefire to allow the distribution of humanitarian aid to “alleviate the suffering” of Gazans.
Putin recalled the meeting with his Palestinian counterpart last August and stated that, since then, “the situation in the region, unfortunately, has not only not improved but, on the contrary, is deteriorating.” and spreading to other areas of the Middle East, such as Lebanon.
“We are seeing all this. “Russia’s principled position is coherent and not circumstantial, we firmly defend the end of bloodshed, the access of humanitarian aid to those in need, we ask for restraint from all parties,” he stated.
The Russian president also said that ““Russia traditionally pays special attention to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict” and that “we particularly work in this area within the scope of our BRICS presidency.”.
Abbas expressed his gratitude to Russia for “its consistent and firm position in support of the Palestinian cause and our people.”
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was one of the main topics discussed during the three-day BRICS summit in Kazan, where leaders such as the presidents of China, Xi Jinping, Brazil, Lula da Silva, and Iran, Masud Pezeshkian, demanded an immediate ceasefire and Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza.
The Venezuelan president joined them, Nicolás Maduro, who criticized the UN for its lack of action in the conflictand his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who demanded an end to arms sales to Israel.
On October 7 of last year, Israel declared a war in the Gaza Strip to “eradicate” the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, hours after it carried out an attack of unprecedented proportions in Israeli territory, killing some 1,200 people. and causing around 250.
The war, which this Thursday marked 384 days and continues to threaten to spread throughout the Middle East region, has so far killed 42,847 people in the Gaza Strip (almost 2% of the population), including 17,000 minors, and 100,544 injured, in addition to more than 10,000 missing, most of them civilians, presumably buried in the rubble, according to updated figures from local authorities, which the UN considers reliable.
Source: Observadora
