Israeli ambassador points out “crimes”. Palestinian calls for end to violence

“O what we are seeing are blatant and barbaric war crimes: they are murdering civilians, abusing hostages, taking babies from their mothers”, said Gilad Erdan, in statements to the media, in which he described the attacks that led to a new war in that region as “Israel’s 9/11”.

“The Security Council is preparing to meet today and Israel has only one demand: Hamas’ war crimes must be condemned unequivocally,” added the diplomat, who described as “immoral and false” the comparisons between “a group savage terrorist” and the “democratic State of Israel”.

The ambassador assured that today “many members” of the international community express support for Israel, but “tomorrow this may not be the case”, and criticized the UN and “particularly” the Security Council for having “a very short memory” in relation to the your country, avoiding making direct mentions.

Erdan said that since Hamas came to power in the Gaza Strip (in 2007), “the world has tried to reason” with the Islamic group and the international community has sent billions of funds for the rehabilitation of Gaza, but that money has been used to develop “terrorist infrastructures” in the territory.

“You cannot achieve peace with an organization whose only objective is to destroy you”, he criticized, adding that, in the past, “no one talked about reaching a peace agreement with Al-Qaida or the Islamic State”.

Regarding the alleged involvement of Iran or other countries in the attacks against Israel, Erdan avoided “sharing intelligence information”, but pointed to “anti-Semitic” messages from the Iranian supreme leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) and to meetings of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, in Syria and Lebanon, with Hamas leaders and with “other terrorist armies around Israel.”

In this sense, the Israeli diplomat added that Iran is trying to make the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia unfeasible, which Tel Aviv assured that it “wants to happen”, as it considers it a “moderate country” in the region, which wants to “live in peace and coexist”.

For his part, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riad Mansur, urged Israel to stop the violence in Gaza and to address “the roots” of the conflict that led to a new war following the Hamas attacks against Israel, which he did not mention or condemned.

Speaking to the media before the emergency meeting on the situation in the Middle East behind closed doors of the Security Council, Mansur criticized the international community that only pays attention “when Israelis are murdered” and ignores Palestinian complaints about the blockade and Israeli attacks on Gaza year after year.

“We chose the peaceful path to achieve our rights, but Israel continued to use brute force against the lives and rights of Palestinians. Israel cannot wage a full-scale war against a nation, its people, its land and their temples and hope for peace, we have to address the root of the conflict,” he said.

“Israel continues to say that the blockade and repeated attacks on Gaza will destroy Hamas’ military capabilities (…), but all it achieves is inflicting terrible suffering on an entire civilian population, it is time to put an immediate end to the violence and bloodshed, it is time to end the blockade and open a political path”, advocated Mansur.

Ahead of the Security Council meeting, the diplomat recognized the international community’s great support for Israel and its self-defense, but maintained that at the same time “its colonialist and racist agenda” against the Palestinians is being ignored, asking “not to losing sight of the global panorama” of the conflict.

“Everyone in the room behind me (…) agrees to end the game. Israel expects and demands political and military support while promoting objectives that are fundamentally at odds with international legitimacy and consensus,” he added.

“You cannot say: ‘Nothing justifies killing Israelis’ and then justify killing Palestinians. We are not sub-human, I repeat, we are not sub-human,” added Mansur, who said that among the hundreds of deaths reported in Gaza there are victims of entire families and children.

The Islamic group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israeli territory on Saturday, with the launch of thousands of rockets and the incursion of armed militiamen by land, sea and air.

In response to the surprise attack, Israel bombed several Hamas facilities in the Gaza Strip from the air.

The armed conflict has already caused hundreds of deaths on both sides and thousands of injuries.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel is “at war” with Hamas.

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