2023-10-08 05:32:22
Following the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict this Saturday, October 7, due to the offensive launched by air, land and sea by Hamas from Gaza against Israel (which leaves more than 250 dead), the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, insisted on the need to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas launched a general offensive against Israel this Saturday, which considered the attack surprising and responded with bombings. The attack leaves more than 250 dead, about 200 of them in the Palestinian enclave. Following the offensive, Israel also declared war and threatened Hamas with an “unprecedented price” for this act.
Read also: Petro insists on the end of Israel’s occupation of Palestine to find peace and the world rejects Hamas offensive
From Colombia, President Petro spoke on the X account (formerly Twitter): “Perhaps I was the only president in the world to denounce at the United Nations how the Russian occupation of Ukraine and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. “I proposed two international Peace conferences to resolve both conflicts and find peace.”
In said message, the Colombian president had questioned what in his opinion is a “double standard to assume a great front of human unity in the war of Russia and Ukraine against Russia and not take sides and sabotage the possibility of a great human front in Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory is the same.” “What is the difference between the war between Russia and Ukraine and the war between Israel and Palestine?” he had said.
In another message that he published this Saturday, Petro assured that the United Nations “has issued resolutions with the immense majority vote of the nations of the world requesting that Israel’s occupation of Palestine cease and that the peace agreements, unknown today, remain in force. “That is our position as the government of Colombia.”
Regarding these statements, the director of the Jewish community in Colombia, Marcos Peckel, responded that “the war has not broken out. Israel was attacked by Palestinian terrorists who infiltrated from Gaza into Israel, massacred dozens of Israeli civilians in their homes and held a large number of hostages. That must be repudiated.”
For her part, teacher and researcher Sandra Borda responded to the president that “the aspiration for international leadership cannot be built like this. This is a difficult topic and one that must be approached with a little more reflection. A tweet of eagerness, full of errors and difficult to read cannot be what the country’s position on this issue is reduced to.”
Palestine is a territory that has lived under regional tension since 1948, when the state of Israel was founded. It is currently divided into two territories: the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which has experienced an escalation of war since 2006, when Hamas, a group considered terrorist by Israel and other countries, came to power after elections, and which since then it has not recognized the agreements signed between other Palestinian factions and Israel.
Since then, in the Gaza Strip, a small territory ravaged by poverty and war and where 2.3 million people live, Israel has imposed a blockade on this Palestinian enclave.
This Saturday’s attacks that monopolized the covers of the main media outlets in the world generated other reactions of rejection. The United States, Israel’s main ally in this conflict, “unequivocally condemned” the escalation, which it described as unjustified, “of Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians,” according to a statement from National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson.
“Our commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself remains unwavering,” said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, promising that his country will work “to ensure that Israel has what it needs to defend itself and protect civilians from indiscriminate violence and terrorism.”
In addition, Brazil, which currently holds the presidency of the UN Security Council, reported that it will call “an emergency meeting of the organization.”
“The Brazilian government condemns the series of bombings and ground attacks carried out today in Israel starting from the Gaza Strip,” reads a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry of the South American giant.
Likewise, “he urged all parties to exercise maximum restraint in order to avoid escalation of the situation.”
The European Union also rejected the attacks “unequivocally” and affirmed that Israel has the “right to defend itself.” Along the same lines, NATO stated that it will support the right of the Hebrew State to defend itself, while Russia called for an “immediate” ceasefire.
#Israel #declares #war #Hamas #attack #years #seeking #peace