Palestine-Israel conflict clash of oppressors and oppressed: Fidan
THE DECADES-OLD Israel-Palestine conflict is a struggle between oppressors and the oppressed, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday as the war on Gaza nears its seventh month.
“The conflict between Israel and Palestine has ceased to be a war and has turned into a struggle of the oppressors and the oppressed,” Fidan told a joint news conference with Winston Peters, his counterpart from New Zealand. The conflict also evolved into a “struggle between the founders of the international system and the oppressed within this system,” he added.
He said Israel has not only been killing Palestinians but also international law.
Israel has conducted a genocidal bombardment of the Gaza Strip killing over 34,000 people, mainly women and children, since a cross-border attack by Hamas last Oct. 7, which killed some 1,200 people.
The Israeli war on Gaza has also pushed 85% of the territory’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the U.N.
Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.
Fidan further said a meeting between the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Arab League members in Riyadh this weekend would tackle steps that could be taken on the recognition of Palestine.
“If we fail to move the international community into action, this third and most violent Gaza War will not be the last,” Fidan warned. “We need to work with all our strength for a permanent solution.”