Israel starving Palestinians as ‘weapon of war’, al-Maliki tells UN
GENEVA – AFP
Palestinian National Authority Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki has said people in the Gaza Strip are “starving because of Israel’s deliberate use of starvation as a weapon of war”.
Speaking at a meeting in Geneva to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he accused the international community of “utter international failure towards the most basic rights of an entire people.”
“Rather than pontificating about our rules-based international system and the universal values of human rights, we must have the courage to say that our system is failing and failing miserably,” al-Maliki added.
“Rather than insisting on respecting the Palestinian people’s basic right to eat and drink water, we are living through this dystopian reality that excludes Palestinians from the basic, most basic rights afforded to all human beings,” he said.
“Rather than condemning this atrocious crime, states have accommodated it and accepted Israel’s criminal terms for how much food, for how much water, for how much fuel and medicine can enter Gaza and to whom this essential aid can be supplied.”