Factbox: How have world leaders reacted to Israel's genocide in Gaza Strip?
By Press TV Staff Writer
While the Western states continue to turn a blind eye to the Israeli regime’s genocidal campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip, some world leaders have unequivocally condemned it.
Since October 7, when the Hamas-led Palestinian resistance movement launched an unprecedented military operation, the Israeli regime has been indiscriminately bombarding the Gaza Strip.
More than 6,000 Palestinians have been killed in the aerial blitz, most of them children.
The Zionist enemy has also suffered massive damage, including the killing of thousands of soldiers and settlers as a result of the Palestinian rocket attacks.
Ebrahim Raeisi, President of Iran
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raeisi is one of the world leaders who has explicitly denounced the genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks and called for the boycott and accountability of Israel.
Speaking to a gathering of pro-Palestine demonstrators in Tehran last Wednesday, President Raeisi said the Israeli regime is only accelerating its annihilation by killing innocent Palestinians.
“Every drop of Palestinian blood brings the Zionists closer to downfall, and the Zionist regime cannot compensate for its defeats with these atrocities,” he asserted as the crowd chanted ‘Free Palestine.’
“Which human being accepts these heinous crimes? Killing women and children, attacking hospitals—this marks the beginning of the end for the Zionist regime.”
President Raeisi has also spoken to a number of world leaders in recent weeks, calling for a united front against the occupying Israeli regime and an end to the massacre of Palestinians.
In a meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday, Iran’s president said what is happening in Gaza is a horrendous crime against defenseless people with direct support of the US.
“Today, the United States is trying to pursue through a UN Security Council resolution what it has not been able to achieve in the field with regards to supporting the Zionist regime and meeting its own racist interests," Raeisi told the visiting top Russian diplomat.
In a meeting with Azerbaijan's foreign minister Jeyhun Bayramov on Monday, Raeisi said the US and its Western allies have supported the Israeli regime's crimes against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Raeisi has also spoken over the phone with his counterparts from Qatar, Oman, Russia, Turkey, Brazil and other countries in recent weeks to bring them under one umbrella against the Israeli regime.
He has also categorically warned that war in Palestine can broaden if the Zionist regime does not stop the killing of Gaza people and its cruel and crippling blockade on the coastal strip.
In a phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron last Sunday, Iran’s president warned against the consequences of the ongoing developments in the Gaza Strip.
Evo Morales, Former President of Bolivia
In a strongly-worded statement on Tuesday, the former Bolivian president Evo Morales called on the incumbent Bolivian government to sever diplomatic ties with the Israeli regime.
“When we came to government after winning the elections in December 2005, we broke relations with Israel as a consequence of our pacifist and anti-imperialist principles,” he said.
“After the November 2019 coup d'état that was supported by #EEUU, (Jeanine) Añez, obeying the orders of the empire, restored relations with Israel. It's been three years now and that relationship unfortunately continues.”
Morales said he repeats the request to the Latin American country’s government to “break relations” with the Israeli regime and “clearly and emphatically condemn the massacres and genocide against the Palestinian people.”
“He who does not reject genocides is an accomplice. Such genocide cannot be accepted in Palestine. #Israel should be declared a terrorist state,” the former president asserted.
Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela
In a statement on Tuesday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro appealed to Christians around the world to stand against the genocide of Palestinians and condemn the Israeli regime.
Appearing on his television show "With Maduro", Maduro made a passionate appeal to Christians (Catholic Church and Orthodox Church) to stand with the oppressed people in the Gaza Strip.
“I ask my Christian brothers and sisters in the Catholic Church and the Orthodox Church, in Venezuela and all over the world, to raise their voices and stand against liquidating the people of Gaza and the Palestinian people,” the Venezuelan president said.
"The genocide must stop, and a global conference must be held as soon as possible to restore the rights of the Palestinian people to peace, land, independence, and their own state.”
In a statement issued last week, Maduro described the Israeli aggression on Gaza as “genocide.”
“We have witnessed in the past massacres and brutal atrocities against the Palestinian people.”
“We demand an immediate ceasefire, respect for UN resolutions, respect for the rights of peoples, and the commencement of peace negotiations to allow the Palestinian people to regain their legitimate rights to independence, land and peace.”
Earlier in a statement, the Latin American country said the events unfolding in Gaza were “the result of the inability of the Palestinian people to find a space in international law to assert their historical rights.”
Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa
South African president also posted a video statement on his X page on Saturday to express solidarity with the people of Palestinians and condemn the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
“The main way to address the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is to implement the two-state solution and establish an independent Palestinian state,” Ramaphosa said in the clip, wearing the Palestinian Keffiyeh, condemning the Israeli order for evacuations in northern Gaza.
He affirmed South Africa's “solidarity with the Palestinian people and its support for a peaceful solution,” and stressed that "a peaceful solution to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine will reflect positively on the entire Middle East."
Pertinently, South African foreign minister Naledi Pandor also reportedly spoke to Hamas political office leader Ismail Haniyeh and expressed condolences over the massacre in the coastal Gaza Strip.
Her office said Pandor “reiterated South Africa’s solidarity and support” for the Palestinian people and “expressed sadness and regret for the loss of innocent lives on both sides.”
South Africa’s ruling party, the African National Congress, has often compared the struggle of Black South Africans against the racist white apartheid regime with the Israeli apartheid, with Pandor even calling for Israel to be designated “an apartheid state.”
Gustavo Petro, President of Columbia
A day after the Hamas-led Palestinian resistance movement launched an operation against the Israeli regime, which saw the Israeli military respond with indiscriminate aerial blitz, Colombian President Gustavo Petro took to his official X account to denounce what he called “neo-Nazi” efforts to destroy the Palestinian people, their freedom and culture.
The next day, he returned to social media to slam the comments made by Israeli minister of military affairs Yoav Galan that the regime was fighting “human animals” in the Gaza Strip.
“This is what the Nazis said about the Jews,” tweeted Petro, in a strongly-worded post. “All this hate speech will do, if it continues, is lead to a Holocaust.”
Over the past three weeks, as the Israeli genocidal campaign continues, Petro has been unequivocal in his condemnation of the occupying regime and its crimes.
“I’ve been to the Auschwitz concentration camp and now I see it being copied in Gaza,” Petro said in one post. “If foreign relations with Israel must be suspended, let’s suspend them. We do not support genocides,” Petro added, again comparing Gaza to Auschwitz.
“Hitler will be defeated for the good of humanity, democracy, peace and world freedom,” Petro wrote.
His remarks were followed by Colombia’s foreign minister, Álvaro Leyva Durán denouncing the Israeli ambassador’s “mindless boorishness” towards Petro and hinting that he should leave his post.
“No sensible person can applaud the scorched earth policy, no matter where it comes from. It violates human dignity. It kills innocent people,” Leyva stated.
Lone Belarra, Minister of Social Rights, Spain
One of the most vocal and outspoken voices against the Israeli regime’s genocide in the Gaza Strip over the past three weeks has Lone Belarra, the minister for social rights in Spain.
In one of her social media posts, Belarra said the regime in Tel Aviv has been “applying a very violent policy of occupation and apartheid in Palestine for decades” adding that the the data from these weeks is “terrifying” with more than 5,000 Palestinians being killed, mostly children.
“I leave you this graph to appreciate the magnitude. The genocide must end,” she wrote.
Belarra, who represents the left-wing Podemos party in Spain, again took to social media on Thursday, shortly after the Israeli embassy in Madrid issued a statement accusing some Spanish government officials of making “immoral statements” against Tel Aviv.
She called for a “change of narrative” on the West Asia conflict and denounced the Israeli regime’s “will to annihilate” the Palestinian people, adding to tensions between Madrid and Tel Aviv.
Belarra, along with Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz, and Consumer Minister Alberto Garzón of the Izquierda Unida party, have been criticized by the Israeli embassy in Madrid, which has accused them of making “absolutely immoral” statements by describing the events unfolding in Gaza as “genocide.”
“There is no room for equidistance. At this moment, we have to say clearly that Israel is an occupying state”, Belarra said on Tuesday in an interview aired by Catalunya Ràdio.
“We have to raise our voices to stop this genocide once and for all,” she hastened to add.
She even called for Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu to “be brought before the International Criminal Court for war crimes” for spearheading the massacre of Palestinians.
“I speak on behalf of the Spanish government and behalf of my party, as I am entitled to do by the position I hold”, stressed Belarra in a clear message to the Israeli embassy in Spain and Tel Aviv.
In her latest tweet on Wednesday, Belarra said Netanyahu “is completely out of control” and termed it “essential” that the international community “stops playing into his hands and stops him.”
“I repeat: economic sanctions and arms embargo,” she wrote.
Mahathir Mohamad, Former Prime Minister of Malaysia
Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has also been vocal in his criticism of the occupying Israeli regime and its Western backers, especially the United States.
In a post on X on October 12, Mohamad said the Israelis had been oppressing and subjecting Palestinians on their own land for 70 years.
“They had been labeling Hamas as terrorists. But isn’t Hamas reacting as any people who had been pushed to a corner? Isn’t theirs the reaction of a people who feel helpless and had lost hope of getting help from nations proclaiming to be defenders or justice and humanity,” he wrote.
“Isn’t it only expected for Hamas and any other Palestinian for that matter, who had been subjected to Israel’s occupation, bullying, massacres, genocide and apartheid, to react as what we witness today?”
Following the hospital bombing in the besieged Gaza Strip last week, he called out US President Joe Biden for his comments about the Israeli airstrike, describing US and Israeli officials as liars.
“Why should there be any doubt that the blast of the Al Ahli Arab hospital is from an Israeli air strike as the murderous regime had been attempting to wipe Palestinians and Gaza out of existence since last week,” he wrote.
"Obviously Netanyahu lies about everything. And if Biden wants to use Pentagon to give credence to his narrative, we have not forgotten how Pentagon and other American institutions lied about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," wrote Malaysia's longest-serving prime minister.
Mahathir hastened to add that the “crux of the matter” is that all these atrocities committed by Israel on the Palestinians “stem from the American support for Tel Aviv.”
“If the American government withdraws its support for Israel and stop all military aid to the regime, Israel would not have carried out the genocide and mass murders of Palestinians with impunity,” he wrote.
“The United States government needs to come clean and tell the truth. Israel and its IDF are the terrorists. The United States is blatantly supporting terrorists. So what is the United States?”
Anwaar ul-Haq Kakar, Prime Minister of Pakistan
Pakistani Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar has also spoken out against the ongoing Palestinian genocide in the Gaza Strip, calling them “deplorable and willful”.
In a phone call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a few days ago, Kakar slammed the non-stop bombardment of Gaza, a press release issued by his office said.
Kakar stressed that the international community, particularly the United Nations, “needed to take resolute measures to resolve this crisis and uphold established principles of justice, humanity and international law," the press release stated.
The Pakistani premier in a statement earlier condemned the relentless crimes against the Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip.
“Israel is a cruel and oppressive regime, while Palestine is an oppressed nation,” he told reporters in Islamabad. “This is a war between oppressors and the oppressed.”
Pakistan’s President Arif Alvi also condemned the massacre of Palestinian civilians, urging the international community “to play its active role” to stop the Israeli aggression.
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of Qatar
The Emir of Qatar on Tuesday called on the international community to stop Israeli onslaught, saying Israeli forces should not be given a free license to kill Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
In his opening speech at the Shura council’s annual session, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani said the continuing war was a dangerous escalation that threatened the region, Al Jazeera reported.
“We are saying enough is enough,” he said. “It is untenable for Israel to be given an unconditional green light and free license to kill, nor is it tenable to continue ignoring the reality of occupation, siege and settlements.”
He decried the international community over its “double standards” and “acting as if Palestinian children’s lives are not worth to be reckoned with, as though they are faceless or nameless”.
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