Calls Gaza situation ‘genocidal war’ creating ‘unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe’
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivered his remarks to the United Nations General Assembly by recorded video on Thursday, after the United States denied entry visas to the Palestinian delegation for the second consecutive year and prevented him and his representatives from traveling to New York.
Abbas opened his address by directly contesting the visa decision. “For the second consecutive year, the Palestinian delegation was denied the entry visas required to reach New York and participate in the meetings of the United Nations General Assembly in person,” Abbas said through a translator. “We reject these unlawful punitive measures, and we reject the accusations and justifications on which they were based.”
He then laid out a series of commitments he said Palestine had honored. “We affirm that we have fulfilled our obligations, carried out a comprehensive national reform program, and upheld our commitment to international law, to shunning violence and terrorism, and to the two-state solution, and to peace on the basis of resolutions of international legitimacy,” he said.
Abbas framed Palestinian engagement with international institutions as a peaceful path. “We also affirm that the Palestinian people and its leadership should not be punished for demanding an end for the occupation or for turning to the U.N., the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court,” he said. “Our choice to invoke international law and its institutions is a peaceful and civilized choice, and not an act that runs counter to peace.”
Turning to conditions inside Gaza, Abbas described what he characterized as a sweeping humanitarian emergency. “In the Gaza Strip, our people are being subjected at the hands of the Israeli occupation forces to killing, destruction, starvation, and attempts at displacement, as well as a genocidal war, that has created an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” he said.
He warned that the unresolved status of the Palestinian territories was leading toward indefinite limbo. Leaving the situation as it stands, he said, would produce “a permanent or open-ended situation without any clear time bound political horizon.”
Abbas instead outlined a vision of reunified Palestinian governance. “Rather, it must lead to the reunification of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, under the authority of the State of Palestine, in accordance with the principle of one state, one government, one law, and one legitimate entity authorized to bear arms,” he said.
In a subsequent warning, Abbas argued that the danger had expanded beyond the question of Palestinian statehood. “Today we warn of an even greater danger ahead, one that requires international action to address it,” he said. “The danger is no longer limited to undermining the two-state solution and preventing the realization of the Palestinian state. It has now come to threaten the very life and existence of the Palestinian people on their homeland.”
He characterized ongoing events across Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem as coordinated rather than incidental. “What is taking place in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem are not isolated incidents, but rather a malicious colonial scheme aimed at making the lives of Palestinians more difficult in their homeland, and forcing them to leave it,” Abbas said.
Abbas closed with an offer to pursue peace through international legal frameworks. “We will extend our hands to a peace based on international legitimacy, so that our freedom and independence can be achieved, and so that everyone in the region may live in security, peace and good neighborliness,” he said.
On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu landed at Stewart International Airport north of New York City ahead of his own General Assembly remarks scheduled for 2 p.m. EST Thursday. According to UPI, Netanyahu and his government have said they will never allow a two-state solution.