The Palestinians, refugees in their own homeland
Nineteen days ago, the Israeli occupation committed yet another massacre, adding to the long list of massacres it has committed against the indigenous Palestinian people.
They say, “It will take as long as it takes.”
I say that it has already taken over 75 years, but at what cost? Through what injustice? The cost is already too high. Genocide is not the answer to Israel’s colonial expansion in our homeland and beyond.
Israel’s aggression did not start 19 days ago, it started with the foundations of Israel over the graves of Palestinian citizens and the wiping out of 500 villages and towns over 75 years ago by the Zionist paramilitary militias, which even killed British and American soldiers at the time to realize their dreams.
Until this moment, a lot of the information that was rebroadcast by the media had its sources in the Israeli Army. Now, with the release of the Israeli citizens, the stories we hear debunk the Israeli narrative that has been trying to justify the war crimes of killing over 5,300 Palestinian civilians, including over 2,300 children, 1,300 women and 290 elderly, by demonizing the peaceful Palestinian people and dehumanizing them.
The Israeli Air Force is slaughtering our children and mothers who have nowhere to run to and no safe place to hide, even under the protection of the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Porphyrius in the center of Gaza, where 18 Palestinians were killed.
Israel has blockaded the entire Gaza Strip, the size of the island of Zakynthos, and now they have cut off our water, our electricity, fuel and food supplies, and have closed off the only entrance to the outside world – the Rafah Crossing into Egypt – blocking humanitarian aid and lifesaving emergency kits. The Israeli Air Force over the past 19 days has carpet-bombed entire civilian neighborhoods, bombed hospitals, religious sites, and civilian apartment blocks, just to prove to the world that they are one of the most powerful armies in the world, and they have dropped 12,000 tons of explosives on Gaza.
But Israel is not “defending itself” against an independent state, it is committing war crimes against the defenseless Palestinian population under its occupation, violating 159 articles of the Geneva Conventions which Israel ratified in 1951 before it occupied the rest of Palestine in 1967. Israel is in violation of hundreds of UN resolutions and is being defended as a country above the law, above international law.
Thirty-five UN personnel have been killed in the line of duty, 12 out of the 35 hospitals are out of service, due to the Israeli bombing and the cutting of fuel supplies that supply electricity to lifesaving equipment.
Half of the population of Gaza has been displaced, a systematic policy to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its indigenous population.
The greatest agony now for Palestinians is the inability to protect our children from the Israeli occupation.
Harrowing scenes of lifeless bodies of Palestinian children on stretchers and tables in hospitals and the frantic episodes of doctors trying to insert life back into the bodies of toddlers and babies whose names have been written on their legs and arms with a marker so that medical staff can record the names on their death certificates, and, if found alive, in shock or trauma, can be identified and connected with family members.
The Greek people can understand when I say we cannot protect our children, because Greeks know very well about genocide.
We face the same genocide, as Israel is trying to eliminate our history, our culture, our people, and our thoughts for the past 75 years.
We know the Israelis well; we know their tactics…
We know their untruthful claims…
They have caused unrest since their foundation, they have attacked all the countries in their vicinity, they have played a vital role in unrest in many countries regionally and abroad; at the same time, they kill us, they use white phosphorus, they slaughter our children and mothers, they protect armed Israeli settlers as they steal our land and wage pogroms against our villages in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They have been burning our villages. They attack our holy sites.
But what they can’t take away is our dignity and freedom. “Palestinians are as sturdy as the olive tree, you can cut it, burn it, but it will always grow back again!” Our history on our land dates back as long as that of our olive trees. Many colonizers have crossed our land and left.
Israel tries to demonize us. They try to dehumanize us because we refuse to leave our homeland and will remain rooted in our homeland, like our olive trees. All we want is to live in our homeland in peace, dignity and liberty.
Israel tries to demonize us. They try to dehumanize us because we refuse to leave our homeland. All we want is to live in our homeland in peace, dignity and liberty
The Greek people know the Palestinian people, we have a historic friendship that dates back further than the Hellenistic period.
The Greek people know our leaders, they knew Yasser Arafat, they know the kufiyeh and its symbolism of peaceful popular resistance to occupation. They know that our president, H.E. Mahmoud Abbas, is a man of peace. Our president has affirmed his rejection of practices related to killing or abusing civilians, prisoners and detainees. There are currently over 6,500 Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails, including children.
Our president, as the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), is a man of peace, who has extended his hand to peace, but there is no Israeli peace partner.
The PLO is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, which rejects violence and adheres to international legitimacy, peaceful popular resistance, and political action as a path to achieving our national goals of freedom and independence.
Over the past 19 days Israel has also killed 103 Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, inside Area A designated areas to the security and administration of the Palestinian government as per the Oslo Peace Accords.
Prior to October 7, 250 Palestinian civilians, including 74 children, were killed in these areas, even with missile strikes from drones.
Israel is spilling the war over into the West Bank, and to neighboring countries, in an attempt to draw a new map and a new reality in the Middle East – the new map that Netanyahu presented in his hand before the United Nations General Assembly just a month ago.
The world needs to focus its attention on ending the Israeli genocide, ending Israeli war crimes, and enforcing peace, and to allow the entry of urgent humanitarian aid into Gaza, including potable water for 2.5 million Palestinians.
Netanyahu is adamant about continuing his revenge on the Palestinian people, but this time he has colluded with Western leaders in his crimes against humanity and his crimes against the Palestinians.
Soon, if no action is taken, the history, the culture, the religious sites, including the Greek Orthodox establishment in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, will cease to exist.
I reiterate my appeal to the Greek government, as a historic friend of the Palestinian people, not to give legitimacy to these Israeli war crimes against our people in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem or to assist in any way.
Greece has historically stood and advocated for the application of international law and the just cause and legitimate rights of our people to self-determination with the ending of the Israeli occupation and the establishment of the State of Palestine within the internationally recognized pre-June 4, 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all our friends in Greece who have stood in support of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people with letters of support and peaceful marches. We will never succumb to Israeli state terrorism.
We trust the Greek people. We know their honorable history, in pursuit of freedom and justice. We know their sacrifices and losses. We honor the Greek heroes who stood in defense of their people, their homeland and their values, and I’m certain that you feel our pain, the pain of losing a child, a mother, a brother, and a father.
Two thousand three hundred little Palestinian angels sing for peace, but the trumpets of the Israeli war and destruction block the path to peace.
Yussef Dorkhom is the Palestinian ambassador to Greece.
(Editor’s note: This article was written before the Rafah Crossing opened for limited evacuations on Wednesday.)
