Mustafa Calls on the International Community to Take Real and Tangible Steps to Stop the War

SadaNews - Prime Minister Dr. Mohammed Mustafa called on the international community to take real and tangible steps in light of the escalating famine in the Gaza Strip to stop the war against our people in Gaza, which has continued for 654 consecutive days.

The Prime Minister emphasized that the international community must not be complicit through its silence or distracted by side geopolitical theatrics, as the credibility of the existing world order based on law depends on its ability to apply this law without exception or delay.

Mustafa stated: "Israel, as the occupying power, bears a legal, political, and moral obligation towards our people in Gaza and their fate."

This came during a press conference held today, Monday, in his office in Ramallah, to launch an urgent appeal to stop the policy of starvation and to demand immediate intervention from the international community, in the presence of representatives from international humanitarian organizations and ministers.

The Prime Minister added: "Israel continues to implement a systematic destructive policy against civilian life and infrastructure; it has destroyed the health system, the educational system, and the social and cultural fabric of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. It has forcibly displaced the vast majority of the population of the Strip and turned it into a land of ruin and destruction, resembling an apocalyptic scene."

Mustafa noted that approximately 59,000 Palestinians have been martyred in the Gaza Strip since October 2023, including more than 18,000 children (31%) and 10,000 women (16%). An average of 28 Palestinian children are killed daily in Gaza—equivalent to an entire classroom of students—in a daily scene that shocks the human conscience.

The Prime Minister stated: "Our children in the Gaza Strip are being targeted, killed, injured, starved to death, and deprived of their basic rights: food, clean water, shelter, safety, and education. Gaza has become a graveyard for children."

He continued: Israel continues to use starvation as a weapon of war, including killing more than 995 Palestinians awaiting aid from the traps of death they have set.

The Prime Minister referred to a warning from UN official Tom Fletcher, who said: "Hunger must not be met with bullets." If immediate and widespread access to life-saving humanitarian aid is not allowed, the Gaza Strip faces the danger of slipping into catastrophic famine, further chaos, and additional mass loss of life.

He added: UNICEF and Save the Children warn that more than 900,000 children (93% of Gaza's children) are critically at risk of famine, while 3,500 children under the age of five face imminent death due to starvation.

Regarding the West Bank, the Prime Minister said: "The terrorism of settlers is escalating at a dangerous pace; thousands of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from more than 70 gatherings in various parts of the West Bank due to the rising terrorism of settlers and army incursions."

He added: "These facts are not separate; they represent intertwined manifestations of one policy rooted in occupation, impunity, and systematic racial supremacy. What Israel has been practicing for decades is a systematic and integrated regime of occupation measures, uprooting and displacement, and denial of our people's right to self-determination."

Mustafa stressed that Israel's continuing unlawful withholding and detention of Palestinian clearance funds dangerously restricts our ability to meet our obligations towards citizens. This deliberate policy causes severe damage to vital sectors, foremost among them education, health, and food security.

He concluded his speech: "The famine caused by human hands, imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip, has extended to our people throughout the homeland; it threatens their livelihoods, disrupts salary payments, and drives entire communities to the brink of starvation. We all must act now to stop the war against our people in Gaza and end the blockade imposed on the West Bank."