Embassy of the State of Palestine

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the State of Palestine welcomes the joint statement issued by the UK, Germany, Italy, Australia, and New Zealand, rejecting the Israeli decision to occupy the Gaza Strip and the occupation’s measures to annex the West Bank. The statement also renewed the call to end the crimes of genocide, starvation, and forced displacement, and stressed the importance of enabling the Palestinian Authority to exercise its political and legal authority over the Gaza Strip as an inseparable part of the territory of the State of Palestine.

The General Delegation of Palestine in Canberra condemns in the strongest terms the Israeli Security Cabinet’s adoption of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s proposed plan for the Israeli military to “take over” the Gaza Strip, which represents a severe escalation of Israel’s ongoing genocidal assault against the Palestinian people in Gaza and is a blatant attempt to undermine and sabotage international efforts to secure a ceasefire and a lasting peace in the region.

UN experts decry Israel’s escalation of its genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people in Gaza, while calling on the international community to end its complicity in the face of Israeli atrocities as ceasefire talks continue without progress: “Without urgent international action, the words ‘never again’ will refer not to the prevention of genocide, but to the existence of Palestinian life in Gaza.”

UN experts: To avert further deaths and inhuman suffering by starvation, Israel must immediately restore unimpeded access to Gaza by impartial humanitarian organisations, including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). “States must do everything in their power to restore the UN humanitarian system in Gaza.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates welcomes the phone call made by Australian Prime Minister Albanese to His Excellency the President of the State of Palestine this week, and its content. The Ministry further commends the mass demonstration in Sydney in solidarity with Palestine and renews its call for Australia and all remaining states to immediately recognize the State of Palestine in accordance with international law to safeguard the two-state solution and prospects for achieving a just and lasting peace.

UN experts: The GHF is an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law. “Under any circumstances, when war crimes are overlooked in exchange for temporary relief, impunity can become normalised. Yet, in this case, we are leaving a State accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in charge of feeding the population affected by the genocide without oversight and with impunity. This overt hypocrisy is disturbing."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the State of Palestine urges concrete international action to halt the crimes committed by Israeli terrorist settler militias against the Palestinian people, affirming that these settler crimes constitute organized state terrorism and fall within the framework of an official Israeli policy which is hostile to peace and aims to expand colonial settlement plans by enabling and protecting extremist settler groups as they escalate their attacks and atrocities.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the State of Palestine strongly condemns the incitement campaigns launched by Israel against the PLO, the Palestinian National Authority, and members of the Palestinian diplomatic corps, and calls for urgent international protection for the State of Palestine; its land, its people, and its legitimate leadership.

Palestinian Prime Minister Dr. Mohammad Mustafa has officially conveyed the State of Palestine’s full support and endorsement for the New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution and its Annex, in letters addressed to Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot.

UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression: Online attacks and unfounded accusations by the Israeli army against Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif are a blatant attempt to endanger his life and silence his reporting on the genocide in Gaza. “There is growing evidence that journalists in Gaza have been targeted and killed by the Israeli army on the basis of unsubstantiated claims that they were Hamas terrorists."