Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has described the Gaza Strip as an “integral” part of Palestine and expressed the PA’s readiness to assume control of the blockaded area after the end of the ongoing Israeli genocide in the coastal silver.
Abbas made the remarks in a speech on Friday marking the 19th anniversary of the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who chaired the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) until 2004, amid Israel’s brutal onslaught on Gaza that has since October 7 claimed more than 11,000 innocent lives.
Abbas was cited by Palestine’s official Wafa news agency as saying that he had no words to describe “genocidal war and destruction inflicted upon our Palestinian people in Gaza by the Israeli killing machine, with blatant disregard for international law.”
“How can the world remain silent in the face of the killing and injury of over 40,000 Palestinians, predominantly children and women, and the destruction of tens of thousands of homes, infrastructure, hospitals, and shelters?” he asked.
Abbas said that the Palestinian Authority was ready to assume responsibility for the Gaza Strip within the framework of a comprehensive political solution.
“The Gaza Strip is an integral part of the State of Palestine, and we will bear our full responsibilities within the framework of a comprehensive political solution for both the West Bank, including al-Quds and the Gaza Strip,” he said.
Abbas called for an international peace conference to provide “international guarantees” and a timetable to end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Abbas also denounced Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and the forced evacuation of its residents that would be reminiscent of a second Nakba, a reference to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948 by Zionists.
Israel waged the war on Gaza on October 7 after Palestinian resistance groups launched a surprise attack, dubbed Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, into the occupied territories in response to the Israeli regime’s intensified crimes against Palestinians.
The Gaza-based health ministry announced on Friday that 11,078 people, including 4,506 children, have been killed since then, and 27,490 others have sustained injuries.
The Tel Aviv regime has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal area into a humanitarian crisis.
Scores killed in Israeli strike on Palestinian school
In another development on Friday, Palestine’s Shehab news agency said about 50 Palestinians were killed as the Israeli regime launched a missile attack on al-Buraq School in Gaza.
The director of al-Shifa Hospital, where the casualties had been taken, also said around 50 people had lost their lives in Israeli strikes on the Palestinian school.
“About 50 martyrs were recovered from inside al-Buraq school… in the al-Nasr neighborhood in Gaza after missile and artillery strikes that targeted the school this morning,” said Mohammad Abu Salmiya, the al-Shifa Hospital director.
Gaza health system reached ‘point of no return’
Meanwhile, the Red Cross warned on Friday that the healthcare system in war-ravaged Gaza has “reached a point of no return” after Israel’s incessant bombardment of the blockaded Strip.
“Overstretched, running on thin supplies and increasingly unsafe, the healthcare system in Gaza has reached a point of no return risking the lives of thousands of wounded, sick and displaced people,” the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement.
The occupying regime has over the past weeks launched various strikes on Gaza’s medical and educational facilities as part of its month-long onslaught on the besieged area.
Tel Aviv has so far defied international calls to implement a ceasefire aimed at taking Palestinian civilians, including women and children, out of harm’s way.
