By Wallace Mawire/Zimbabwe
Ambassador Tamer Almassri, Palestine Ambassador in Zimbabwe has condemned in the strongest terms a harrowing act of barbarity in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli illegal settlers forced a Palestinian family to exhume the body of their 80-year-old father, Hussein Asasa, from his freshly dug grave in their own village.
The Ambassador said the heinous act, which was carried out despite the family having all the necessary permits, is a clear example of the extreme measures that Israeli settlers are willing to take to assert their dominance over the Palestinian population and a stark reminder of the systematic dehumanization of Palestinians that is unfolding across the Occupied Palestinian Territories that spares no one- neither the living nor the dead.
He said since October 2023, there has been a drastic increase in the number of attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank with least 13 Palestinians killed in a month while hundreds injured and many more driven from their homes.
The Ambassador said Netanyahu’s fascist government, which staunchly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state, has been accelerating illegal settlement building and empowering Israeli settlers or soldiers to use their weapons to commit violence against Palestinians increasing threat to the safety and livelihoods of Palestinians.
He added that the death toll from the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip has risen to 72,740, while 172,192 others were wounded since 2023 with over 12 000 still buried under the rubble.
He said the international community has a moral obligation to condemn the Israeli government’s actions and to hold them accountable for their crimes.
He said the fact that the Israeli government has been able to act with impunity for so long is a clear indication of the failure of the international community to take decisive action.
The Ambassador said the United Nations and other international organizations must take a strong stance against the Israeli government’s actions and demand that they respect the rights of the Palestinian population.
