Israel Waging A War Of Starvation-Palestinian Ambassador.

By Ferdinand Olise

The Palestinian Ambassador to Nigeria, Abu Shawesh, has thanked  the political leaders, and people of South Africa for their strong moral stance, and for standing steadfastly in support of international law and justice, by suing Israel for its genocide of the Palestinian people.

The Ambassador who stated this in Abuja yesterday at a media briefing in Abuja on the ongoing war, lamented that, Israel is waging a war of starvation, and pushing the Palestinian economy faster towards the already clearly ravaging disaster.

According to him, South Africa submitted an 84 page document with an evidence that Israel is breaching its legal obligation under the 1948 International Genocide Convention which defines genocide as acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole, or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.

“For the third month in a row, Israel refuses to transfer the Palestinian clearance funds to the Palestinian government, leaving it unable to pay its employees salaries, and other financial obligations.
“The lack of drinking water in the Strip has become a matter of life and death”. Residents
are currently forced to drink unclean well water, which is contributing to the spread of transmitted, and infectious diseases, especially amid the power outage, and overall water supply shortage.

“It is absolutely inhumane to see countries with the largest military naval forces in the world moving to protect shipping and trade lines in the Red Sea, but we do not see them moving or even raising their voices to stop the acts of genocide taking place in the occupied Palestinian territories that we are seeing on the news.
What makes matters worse is that many of these countries are fully complicit in the ongoing genocide in Palestine by providing Israel with military means and ammunition, in addition to unconditional and unlimited political support.

“More than 90 per cent of the population is now suffering from acute food insecurity, and
many are on the brink of avoidable human-made famine. We recall that, starvation of the civilian population as a method of war is prohibited”, he said.

Ambassador Shawesh further gave the statistics of those killed between 7 October 2023, to 12 January, 2024.

“Between 7 October 2023, to 12 January 2024, at least 23,708 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, and 60, 005 Palestinians  injured. Since 11 October, 2023, the Gaza Strip has been under an electricity blackout after the Israeli authorities cut off the electricity supply and fuel reserves, Gaza’s sole power plants were denied”.

The Ambassador therefore said it is needed that the documentaries of the incidents be made for future reference.

“The tragic stories and human suffering that are affecting everyone in Gaza need to be archived and documented.
This is important not only to track down and punish the criminal Israeli leaders in the future, but also for all of humanity to learn lessons from this tragedy and prevent it from happening again.

“Documenting the tragic stories of the victims will be a step forward in helping them come out of the shock and trauma, and to begin to recover. It will also bring them some justice when we all treat them as human beings, not just as numbers” he added.