UNITED NATIONS: Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas called on Thursday on the international community to stop sending weapons to Israel in order to halt bloodshed in the West Bank and Gaza, singling out the United States.

Abbas said that Washington continued to provide diplomatic cover and weapons to Israel for its conflict in Gaza despite the mounting death toll there, now at 41,534 according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run strip.

“Stop this crime. Stop it now. Stop killing children and women. Stop the genocide. Stop sending weapons to Israel. This madness cannot continue.

The entire world is responsible for what is happening to our people in Gaza and the West Bank,“ Abbas said in an address to the UN General Assembly.

Gaza rescuers say 15 killed in Israeli strike on school

The vast majority of the besieged Gaza Strip’s 2.4 million people have been displaced at least once by the conflict with many seeking shelter in school buildings. “The US alone stood and said: ‘No, the fighting is going to continue.’ It did this by using the veto,” he said, referring to the veto repeatedly wielded to thwart censure in the UN Security Council of Israel’s campaign in Gaza.

“It furnished Israel with the deadly weapons that it used to kill thousands of innocent civilians, children and women. This further encouraged Israel to continuous aggression,” he added, saying that Israel “does not deserve” to be in the UN.

Washington is Israel’s closest ally and backer, supplying the nation with billions of dollars of aid and military material.

Attacks Israel’s UN membership

The speech by Abbas comes months after the General Assembly voted that the State of Palestine merited full membership. As world leaders opened their speeches on Tuesday, Abbas was able to take his seat alongside the Palestinian delegation, seated in the General Assembly in alphabetical position.

In his address, Abbas said Israel’s defiance of the United Nations, which it often calls biased, showed the country should not be part of the world body. “Israel, which refuses to implement United Nations resolutions, does not deserve to be a member in this international organisation,” Abbas said.

Gaza school strike

Civil defence rescuers in Gaza said an Israeli strike on Thursday on a school-turned-shelter killed at least 15 people. Civil defence agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said there were “15 martyrs, including children and women, and several wounded, some of them seriously, following an Israeli bombardment of Al Faluja school in Jabalia camp in north Gaza”. Bassal earlier said the death toll was seven.

Thursday’s attack was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on school buildings housing displaced people in Gaza, where fighting has raged for nearly a year.

A strike on the United Nations-run Al Jawni School in central Gaza on Sep 11 drew international outcry after the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said six of its staffers were among the 18 reported fatalities.

At least 41,534 Palestinians, a majority of them civilians, have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the conflict began, according to data provided by the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The United Nations has acknowledged these figures as reliable.

Residents said Israeli forces operating in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and in Zeitoun, a suburb of Gaza City, had blown up several homes in both areas as the military continued its operations there.

Peace hopes

Many months of diplomatic efforts to reach a Gaza ceasefire have yielded little progress, with Israel refusing any deal to halt the fighting without the total defeat of Hamas. Over the past week, Israel has also launched some of the biggest airstrikes on Lebanon in nearly two decades, targeting Hezbollah, which has been firing into Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians.

On Wednesday, the United States, France and several other allies called for an immediate 21-day ceasefire across the Israel-Lebanon border while also expressing support for a Gaza ceasefire following intense discussions at the United Nations. In Gaza, many Palestinians voiced hope that a deal to end the war in Lebanon would also bring an end to the fighting in the Palestinian enclave.

“Since Oct 8, Hassan Nasrallah conditioned ending the strikes by Hezbollah on ending the Israeli crimes and war on Gaza. This is a big gate of hope that peace may prevail in Lebanon and Gaza,” said Tamer Al Burai, a Palestinian businessman from Gaza City, who is currently displaced in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

“We stand in solidarity with the people of Lebanon and we don’t wish that anyone be harmed as Gaza was,” Burai said via a chat app.

Some expressed concern that a deal in Lebanon alone could free Israel’s hands further in Gaza, but Abed Abu Mustafa, a resident of Gaza City, said he expected Nasrallah to continue supporting the Palestinian enclave.

The health ministry in Gaza on Thursday accused the Israeli army of treating exhumed bodies in an “inhumane” manner, saying it deposited a container containing scores of dead Palestinians without proper documentation.

The Gaza health ministry said the Israeli army sent back a container on Wednesday containing 88 bodies “without any data or information that could help identify” them.

Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2024