Maureen Okpe
Ambassador Abdullah Abu Shawesh of the Embassy of the State of Palestine, while condemning the ongoing US-Isreali genocide have described as horrific the situation of the residents in Gaza.
Shawesh during a press conference on Thursday, in Abuja stated the devastating scenes experienced by women and children in the terror torn country.
The Ambassador while disclosing some statistical figures of the situation in Gaza, 384 days after revealed 42,603 registered martyrs, out of whom 17,000 children, 171 infants, 786 were less than one-year-old.
Continuing, he noted 37 died of hunger, 11,673 women, 1,047 medical staff, 85 civil defense personnel, 177 journalists. Additionally, 520 bodies were recovered from 7 mass graves inside hospitals, and 10,000 are still missing.
According to him, 100,282 wounded arrived at hospitals, 12,000 wounded need to travel abroad for medical treatments, 12,500 cancer patients face death due to the lack of appropriate treatments, 396 media correspondents.
Shawesh further disclosed that, 35,055 children living without their parents or without one of them, 71,338 viral hepatitis cases diagnosed due to displacement. 5,000 detainees, 310 medical staff among the three doctors who were assassinated, and 193 shelters targeted.
He said, “In the occupied West Bank, the number of detainees has reached 11,400, including 9,392 administrative detainees, 129 journalists (58 of whom are still under arrest), 750 children, and 430 women.
“Additionally, thousands of detainees from Gaza and forcibly disappeared individuals are languishing in the occupation prisons and concentration camp without any information about them.”
He lamented that, Gaza is the real-world embodiment of hell on earth for its one million children.Noting the situation getting worse, day-by-day, following the horrific impact of the daily airstrikes and military operations on Palestinian children.
He said, “Today the south is desperately overcrowded, and lethally lacks essential water, sanitation and shelter. So where would children and their families go?
“They are not safe in schools and shelters. They are not safe in hospitals. And they are certainly not safe in overcrowded camp sites.
“Perhaps the darkest irony in once again forcibly displacing families into these so called ‘humanitarian zones’ is that – beyond their lack of food, water and medicine – they too have been bombed.
“…an extensive pattern of unlawful, discriminatory and disproportionate restrictions and repression of freedom of expression, primarily of Palestinian activists and their supporters.
“This trend did not emerge with the Israeli assault on Gaza but has become more widespread in the past year, from the targeted killing of journalists in Gaza to the banning of Palestinian protests, speech and symbols in various countries, especially in North America and Europe.
“Silence is required when children sleep, not when they are slaughtered like sheep right in front of the world’s eyes.
Silence is complicity.”
Citing the Commissioner General, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, Philippe lazzarini, Ambassador Shawesh said, the situation in Gaza “It’s not a humanitarian crisis, it the US – Israeli genocide, period, call a spade a spade.Gaza is home to the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history.
“The smell of death is everywhere as bodies are left lying on the roads or under the rubble…. In northern Gaza, people are just waiting to die. They feel deserted, hopeless and alone.”