HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohamed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani said Tuesday the Palestinian cause is a central issue for the Middle East and the world.
Speaking at a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he said that the international community's reaction to the war in the Gaza Strip was unfortunately disappointing for the people of the region and that there is a need to find an immediate solution and ways to end the war as soon as possible, and to release both hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
For the first time in modern history and in a situation like this, even the call for a ceasefire has become a controversial term, and the only effective way to reach a ceasefire is related to the exchange of hostages, which faces many challenges, he said.
HE Sheikh Mohamed stressed the need to address the issue in the West Bank as well, adding that the media doesn't convey much of what is happening there. He pointed out that the situation in the West Bank is not better than what is happening in the Gaza Strip, as there may not be comprehensive bombing, but there are killings and violence by settlers, and the extremist government calling for ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, and unfortunately, there hasn't been a real reaction from the international community.
HE the prime minister underscored the need to address the rift among Palestinian factions as a prerequisite to implementing the principle of the two-state solution, warning that a two-state solution cannot be reached without the Israeli government and politicians showing a strong belief in peaceful coexistence and bringing the war to an end.
Highlighting the huge impacts of the repercussions of the war on the Gaza Strip on future generations, he said the death toll and horrific images from the war would bear grave short, medium and long-term impacts. With the children and families watching their relatives and parents being killed in bombings amid international indifference, future generations in the region, Europe and the whole world will only show anger and loathing, he said.
Commenting on the reconstruction in the Gaza Strip, HE Sheikh Mohamed said the reconstruction conference, which was jointly hosted by Norway and Egypt following the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza, saw many countries pledging to provide large sums of money to reconstruct the Gaza Strip, but the matter did not go beyond that, because most of these countries do not believe that the situation would be sustainable.
From time to time, almost every year, limited-scale tensions have escalated in the Gaza Strip, leaving a lot of destruction, he added.
"The devastation in Gaza left over 23,000 people killed, almost two-thirds of whom were women and children; Nearly there is no Gaza anymore, there is nothing there, the shelling targets the entire Gaza Strip, which necessitates a post-war reconstruction of the whole city."
HE the Prime Minister said that the international community's reaction to the war in the Gaza Strip was unfortunately disappointing for the people of the region.
