TRNC condemns Israeli attacks,
THERE were demonstrations and statements of condemnation issued against Israel in North Cyprus this week after reports that dozens of Palestinians, including children, were killed in Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
Reuters reported on Thursday that at least 67 people have been killed in Gaza since violence escalated on Monday, according to the Gazan Health Ministry, while seven people have been killed in Israel, according to its military.
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas fired rockets at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in retaliation for an Israeli police raid on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem during the holy month of Ramadan that left hundreds of Palestinians injured.
Tensions have also been high over a long-running legal case that could see multiple Palestinian families evicted from their homes to make way for Israeli settlers who, backed by an Israeli court ruling, want to move in, according to Reuters.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates tweeted on Wednesday: “Israeli military aggression is traumatizing an already beleaguered population of 2 million people who have been imprisoned by Israel’s illegal blockade for 14 years, suffering its inhumane impact on all aspects of life. #GazaUnderAttack #SavePalestine”
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu claimed on Monday night that “the terrorist organisations in Gaza crossed a red line and attacked us with missiles at the entrances to Jerusalem” adding that “Israel will respond with great force”.
On Monday the North Cyprus Love
and Fraternity Association (Sevkad) and the Cyprus International Student Association (Cisa) protested against Israel at Sarayönü Square in Lefkoşa.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) Cyprus representative office’s youth branches, the TRNC Disabled People’s Solidarity Association and Ülkü Ocakları (known in English as the Grey Wolves) provided their support for the Lefkoşa protest, as well as other organisations.
Erdoğan Eken, Religious Affairs Consultant of the Turkish Embassy in Lefkoşa, was reporte protest where banners read “Jerusalem belongs to Islam” and “Murderer Israel Get Out of Palestine”
Sevkad head Hüseyin Emre Erdem,
reading out a press statement, said that “Israel did not shy away from viciously carrying out terrorist attacks” on the last Friday of Ramadan at “our sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque on the day that the Muslim community consolidates its sensitivity on the Jerusalem issue”.
“Today. . . Jerusalem and fertile Palestine soil is under occupation,” he said. “The occupiers will leave this land in the same way that they came. The AlAqsa Mosque is a red line for Muslims . . . Jerusalem is a part of our [region]. Because Jerusalem means Mecca, it means Medina. Jerusalem means Damascus, Baghdad, and Cairo. Jerusalem means Mashhad, Qom, and Tehran. Jerusalem means Diyarbakır, Ankara, and İstanbul. Jerusalem means
Lefkoşa, Larnaca, and Erenköy.”
A statement from Cisa said that students from Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Sudan, Somalia, Lebanon and many other countries, along with Turkish Cypriots, gathered to protest the oppression in “Palestinian territories that have been occupied since 1948”.
In a separate event, the Palestinian community in Northern Cyprus, the General Union of Palestinian StudentsGazimağusa Unit and Arab associations gathered on Wednesday at Eastern Mediterranean University to protest “the armed attack by the occupying state, Israel, against the Palestinian people”.
The vice president of the Palestinian community in Northern Cyprus and the “Palestinian political representative” in the TRNC, Amjad Taha, told Cyprus Today in a written statement that Israel had committed “crimes against the Palestinian people in occupied East Jerusalem”.
“[Israel’s] systematic, deliberate, and institutionalised character of colonisation . . . is manifested in the recent developments that have exacerbated the already-high tensions, including in particular the looming forcible displacement of Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah and attacks on Christian and Muslim worshippers observing both Easter and Ramadan,” he said.
Mr Taha continued: “With over 200,000 illegal settlers in the occupied City, and unabated settlement expansion, the continued displacement the Palestinian people presents itself in all its urgency as entire Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah are undergoing the largest mass forcible displacement and expulsion since 1967.
“Israeli settler groups, with full support of both Israeli occupation Army and the Israeli tainted judiciary system, escalated their demolition of the Palestinian homes, the confiscation of Palestinian lands and properties, and forcible displacement and transfer. . .
“As Israel, the occupying power, and its officials accelerate their colonial settlement enterprise, an estimated number of 9,000 Palestinians are under threat of imminent displacement throughout the occupied city of East Jerusalem.
“Israel is committing the crimes of apartheid and persecution against the Palestinian people, using its judiciary system as an instrument of oppression and discrimination, mainly by serving as a rubber stamp to Israel’s discriminatory policies that violate the basic tenets of international law, such as urging the international community to act.
“Israel’s efforts at Judaizing the occupied city are manifested in its systematic attacks on Christian and Muslim Palestinian worshippers, its militarization of religious ceremonies and imposition of discriminatory and punitive measures.
“Pervasive restrictions on access to the places of worship for Palestinian people, the subjugation of Christian and Muslim holy sites and the violation of
Palestinian right to freedom of religion or belief, Israel, the occupying power, continues to perpetrate to entrench its settler-colonial aspirations in the occupied city.
Mr Taha added: “Approaching the explosive situation in occupied East Jerusalem with false equivalence is both unacceptable and disingenuous. There is no parity between the occupied and the occupier, no equivalence between a system of repression and structural violence and a population at the receiving end. For governments to use false equivalence in relation to current events in Jerusalem sends a clear message of lack of seriousness.
“The international community cannot remain paralyzed in the face of these blatant crimes. It is high time for international action.
“We are requesting from all the countries, friends . . . of Palestinians around all over the world to stand by and support Palestinians in the terrible circumstances they are going through.
“Palestinians have not obtained their right to establish their independent Palestinian state, the right of refugees to return to their homeland, and the right to self-determination.
“We are miserable and we will remain [so] unless these rights are returned.”