Frankly Speaking: Is Gaza facing a genocide?

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Updated 15 October 2023
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Frankly Speaking: Is Gaza facing a genocide?

  • Palestinian diplomat says own family and friends have lost their homes in Israeli bombardment of Gaza
  • Clarifies that the Palestinian Authority condemns the loss of all civilian lives, be it Palestinian or Israeli
  • Believes US, other Western countries have lost credibility as mediators, favors key role for Japan instead

DUBAI: If the international community does not step in to prevent a further escalation of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas, Gaza will face “complete destruction” and “genocide,” a senior Palestinian diplomat has said.

Speaking to the Arab News program “Frankly Speaking,” Waleed Ali Siam, the Palestinian ambassador to Japan, related the story of his own family, which has been caught up in Israel’s siege and bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

“First and foremost, unfortunately, my house was destroyed this morning. But that is nothing compared to what my people have endured with hundreds of homes that have been destroyed,” Siam told the program’s host Katie Jensen.




Cars are seen on fire following a rocket attack from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, southern Israel. (File/AFP)

“My family and friends are scattering around. Some of them have lost their homes there. One of them told me, one of the daughters — she is 7 years old — she said: ‘I lost my childhood today. I lost everything in my childhood.’”

Gaza has come under sustained Israeli missile and artillery fire since Oct. 8, when Israel responded to a cross-border assault the previous day by Hamas militants, who killed hundreds of soldiers and civilians, took scores of hostages, and launched a barrage of rockets at Israeli cities.

Hamas, a Sunni group that sprung from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood but that draws support from Shiite Iran and its proxies, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, has said its “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation came in retaliation for the killing of Palestinians and the desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.




Burnt out vehicles in Ashkelon are pictured following a rocket attack from the Gaza Strip into Israel. (File/AFP)

In addition to bombardment, Israel has amassed troops along Gaza’s border ahead of an expected ground invasion and ordered Palestinian civilians in the north of the territory to evacuate to the south, while also cutting off power, water, and deliveries of food and medicine.

Civilian infrastructure has not been spared as Israeli jets and artillery pound structures indiscriminately in densely populated areas.

UN officials have called on Israel to respect the rules of war, which demand the protection of civilian life and deplore acts of collective punishment. Since fleeing their home, Siam said his family has been unable to find a place of safety, as the rubble-strewn streets become impassable and the Israeli bombardment becomes ever more intense.




Palestinians look for survivors of a destroyed building hit during an Israeli air strike as an injured woman is helped in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. (File/AFP)

“They went to a hotel and then they were asked to leave the hotel because the Israelis said to get out of the hotel. Maybe the Israelis would hit it. Now they are running from one street to the other,” said Siam.

“And, unfortunately, the streets are full of rocks and stones (and rubble) from the buildings … They cannot even walk. There are not many streets in Gaza. So, I don’t know what they’re going to do. I really don’t know what they’re going to do.

“We lost some friends; we lost some families. But what can I say? I mean, this is not new for us.”




Waleed Ali Siam, the Palestinian ambassador to Japan. (AN photo)

Regardless of the long-running nature of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the mutual antipathy, Siam said the killing of civilians on either side cannot be justified. “We do condemn the loss of all civilian lives; be it Palestinians or Israelis. Today, tomorrow, or forever,” he said when asked whether the Palestinian Authority condemns the killing, kidnapping and deliberate targeting of civilians.

With regard to the outcome of the current crisis — the biggest and deadliest escalation in the Middle East conflict in decades — Siam’s assessment was grim. “Complete destruction of Gaza, genocide of civilians (in) Gaza. That’s it,” he said.

“Complete destruction. Unfortunately, that’s how we foresee it if the international community does not step in as soon as possible.”




Protesters wave Palestinian flags during a rally in support of Palestinians in Amsterdam on October 15, 2023. (AFP)

After years under effective embargo, the impoverished territory, ruled by Hamas since 2007 and routinely bombarded during armed exchanges with Israel, is in no condition to withstand the present siege.

The enclave’s only power station quickly went out of action and supermarket shelves were stripped bare as the population of 2.2 million people, hemmed in by Israel to the east, the Mediterranean to the west, and a closed border with Egypt to the south, prepared for the worst.

Hospitals are overwhelmed, with wounded civilians flooding in and stocks of medicines and equipment rapidly running out, as deliveries of aid from international agencies are blocked. Israel has reportedly even threatened to bomb aid trucks making their way from Egypt to Gaza via the Rafah crossing.




Israeli troops prepare weapons and armed vehicles near the southern city of Ashkelon on October 15, 2023. (AFP)

“We are in a humanitarian crisis right now,” said Siam. “There’s no electricity, no food, no water, no medicine … over 200,000 Palestinians displaced. We are in this (situation) now. I hope that we don’t continue it.”

Because Israel is purportedly fighting a non-state actor, Siam says the Israeli side has no justification under international humanitarian law or the established rules of war
to punish the civilian population of Gaza for the actions of Hamas.

“As Israel has declared war on a non-state actor, by international law that doesn’t give Israel the right to stop the entry of human aid and food and electricity and water to the civilians under daily bombardment,” he said.




Smoke billows after Israeli bombardment of an area in the Gaza Strip. (File/AFP)

“I do believe that the International (Committee of the) Red Cross and the international community, especially our Arab brothers, (need) to really (put) pressure on allowing all this aid to enter Gaza as soon as possible.”

Western countries were quick to condemn the Hamas attack and voice their solidarity with Israel, with the US deploying two warships to the Eastern Mediterranean and Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, paying a visit to Tel Aviv.

It has fallen to UN officials and aid agencies to call for restraint, urging Israel to observe the rules of war, to avoid causing civilian casualties, and to permit the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.




Children injured in an Israeli strike are rushed to the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on October 15, 2023. (AFP)

“The restraint should be on the part of the Israelis, not on the part of the Palestinians,” said Siam. “You know Israel is one of the 10 most powerful countries in the world. And the US is one of the most powerful countries in the world.

“Both of them are getting into a fight against 2.2 million civilians in Gaza or against the armed 30,000-40,000 so-called Islamic fighters or Hamas fighters. That’s really disproportionate — 50,000 against 1 million soldiers.”

Siam added: “Israel is destroying the livelihoods and homes of Palestinian civilians, punishing them for something they didn’t do. This is collective punishment. This is a war crime. You cannot punish a whole population for some (part) of the population that has done something wrong to Israel.”




People salvage belongings from the rubble of a building levelled in an Israeli strike on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on October 15, 2023. (AFP)

Although the targeting of Israeli civilians by Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the US, EU, and other Western governments, has been widely condemned by supporters of the Palestinian cause, many have also pointed out that the attack did not come from a clear blue sky.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has remained unresolved for 75 years, defying repeated peace initiatives and proposals for a one- or two-state solution. Meanwhile, illegal Israeli settlements have continued to spread in the occupied West Bank, leading to almost daily violence. Another flashpoint of the conflict is Jerusalem, home of the holiest site in the Jewish faith and the third holiest site in Islam, Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Routine provocations and invasions of these sacred sites frequently lead to clashes. Some analysts say the split between Palestinian factions Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank city of Ramallah, and Hamas, which controls Gaza, has hurt the Palestinian cause and made it a hostage of Iranian interests.




A Palestinian boy carries his bird in a cage as families leave their homes following an Israeli attack on the Rafah refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip. (AFP)

Siam believes the rise of Hamas, widely viewed as a proxy of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has benefited the Israeli narrative while undermining the Palestinian cause.

“(According to files published by) WikiLeaks in 2007, the Israeli Defense Intelligence, (its) chief Amos Yadlin, said that Israel will be happy if Hamas took over Gaza, then (it) will deal with Gaza as a hostile state,” he said. “You have to ask the Israelis, first of all, who is Hamas and who supports them?

“As for my job, I represent the Palestinian government and I represent the Palestinian people. I don’t have any problem in representing my people because we have a just cause. We are people that have been fighting for an independent state for the past 75 years. And we will continue on fighting in every form and color as in the charters of the UN and international law.




Waleed Ali Siam, the Palestinian ambassador to Japan, discusses the Israeli military onslaught on Gaza and the unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel with Katie Jensen. (AN photo)

“So as a representative, I have all the confidence in representing my people and its cause. As for what happened on Oct. 7, for me, that history date goes back to 1948 (the Arab-Israeli war). It does not start from Oct. 7.”

Asked if he thinks the Americans should continue to be involved as a mediator in the Middle East peace process, he said: “The US cannot be involved in any negotiation between us and the Israelis. It should be (merely one of the) countries that sit on the table. I believe that Japan should be the main player, not the US, not the Western countries either.”

Elaborating on the point, Siam said: “We have seen the French, the British and some other countries issue statements that suggest they have forgotten that Palestinians are human. We are not, as the Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, ‘human animals.’ We are humans and we have a cause. A just cause.”

 


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  • Medical charity warns of new threat from escalation in fighting in Sudan civil war

KHARTOUM: Civilians in the Darfur region of Sudan face mass atrocities and ethnic violence in the civil war between the regular army and its paramilitary rivals, the charity Medecins Sans Frontieres warned on Thursday.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have sought to consolidate their power in Darfur since losing control of the capital Khartoum in March. Their predecessor, the Janjaweed militia, was accused of genocide in Darfur two decades ago.

The paramilitaries have intensified attacks on El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state which they have besieged since May 2024 in an effort to push the army out of its final stronghold in the region.
“People are not only caught in indiscriminate heavy fighting ... but also actively targeted by the Rapid Support Forces and their allies, notably on the basis of their ethnicity,” said Michel-Olivier Lacharite, Medecins Sans Frontieres’ head of emergencies. There were “threats of a full-blown assault,” on El-Fasher, which is home to hundreds of thousands of people largely cut off from food and water supplies and deprived of access to medical care, he said.


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ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia moved on Thursday to reassure Egypt about its water supply after completing work on a controversial giant $4 billion dam on the Blue Nile.

“To our neighbors downstream, our message is clear: the dam is not a threat, but a shared opportunity,” Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said.

“The energy and development it will generate stand to uplift not just Ethiopia. We believe in shared progress, shared energy, and shared water. Prosperity for one should mean prosperity for all.”

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is 1.8 km wide and 145 meters high, and is Africa's largest hydroelectric project. It can hold 74 billion cubic meters of water and generate more than 5,000 megawatts of power — more than double Ethiopia’s current output. It will begin full operations in September.

Egypt already suffers from severe water scarcity and sees the dam as an existential threat because the country relies on the Nile for 97 percent of its water. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and Sudan’s leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan met last week and “stressed their rejection of any unilateral measures in the Blue Nile basin.” They were committed to safeguarding water security in the region, Sisi’s spokesman said.


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Explosive drone intercepted near Irbil airport in northern Iraq, security statement says

  • The “Flight operations at the airport continued normally,” the Irbil airport authority said

IRBIL, Iraq: An explosive drone was shot down near Irbil airport in northern Iraq on Thursday, the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service said in a statement.

There were no casualties reported, according to two security sources.

The “Flight operations at the airport continued normally and the airport was not affected by any damage,” the Irbil airport authority said in a statement.

The incident only caused a temporary delay in the landing of one aircraft, the statement added.


Jordanian and Vatican officials discuss promotion of Petra as destination for Christian pilgrims

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Jordanian and Vatican officials discuss promotion of Petra as destination for Christian pilgrims

  • They say there is a strategic opportunity to integrate the UNESCO World Heritage Site into routes for Christian travelers
  • Head of tourism authority says highlighting Petra’s significance to Christian heritage itineraries could enhance Jordan’s position on global religious tourism map

LONDON: Officials from Jordan and the Vatican met on Thursday to discuss ways in which they can cooperate to advance religious tourism, including the promotion of the ancient city of Petra as a destination for Christian pilgrims.

Fares Braizat, who chairs the board of commissioners of the Petra Development and Tourism Regional Authority, said that highlighting the significance of the UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of Christian heritage itineraries could enhance Jordan’s position on the global religious tourism map.

The country has a number of important Christian sites, the most significant of which is the location on the eastern bank of the Jordan River where Jesus is said to have been baptized by John the Baptist. Several popes have visited it, including Francis and John Paul II.

Archbishop Giovanni Pietro Dal Toso, the Vatican’s ambassador to Jordan, confirmed the interest in collaborating with Jordanian authorities, and praised the nation’s stability and its rich historical and religious heritage.

Both officials acknowledged the strategic opportunity that exists to integrate Petra into pilgrimage routes for Christian travelers, the Jordan News Agency reported.

The Petra tourism authority recently lit up the Colosseum in Rome with the signature colors of the historic Jordanian site to celebrate a twinning agreement as part of a marketing strategy to attract European visitors, and to raise Petra’s profile globally as a premier cultural and spiritual tourism destination.

The Vatican itself is also a major tourism destination, for Christian pilgrims in particular. In 2025 it is expected to welcome between 30 and 35 million visitors during its latest Jubilee Year, a significant ecclesiastical event that takes place every 25 years.


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Last lifelines in Gaza are being cut, UN chief warns

  • Secretary-General Antonio Guterres again raises alarm over increasingly dire humanitarian crisis as restrictions on aid mount and civilians run out of safe places to shelter
  • He expresses grave concern over series of attacks in recent days that hit locations in which Palestinians were seeking shelter or trying to obtain food

NEW YORK CITY: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday said he was “appalled” by the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza, condemned recent deadly strikes against displaced people, and warned that the enclave is on the brink of total collapse as fuel supplies run out.

He expressed grave concern over a series of attacks in recent days that hit locations in which Palestinians sought shelter or were trying to access food.

Guterres’ spokesperson, Stephane Dujarric, read a statement that said: “Multiple attacks (have) killed and injured scores of Palestinians. The secretary-general strongly condemns the loss of civilian life.”

Civilians in Gaza are running out of safe areas in which to shelter as Israeli evacuation orders continue to expand, Dujarric added as he warned of a dire humanitarian crisis amid mounting restrictions on the delivery of aid and rising casualties among relief workers.

Israeli authorities issued a new displacement order on Thursday targeting parts of Gaza City, citing as a reason rocket fire from Palestinian groups. It affected an estimated 40,000 people, including those living in a displacement site, a medical facility, and a neighborhood previously spared evacuation orders since a temporary ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas ended in March.

“As of earlier today, about 900 families are estimated to have fled,” Dujarric said, adding that approximately 78 percent of the Gaza Strip has now been affected by the cumulative effects of more than 50 such orders. When combined with the effects on areas designated as Israeli militarized zones, the figure rises to 85 percent, leaving just 15 percent of the territory available for civilians to live.

“Those areas are, of course, overcrowded,” Dujarric said. “They also severely lack basic services or proper infrastructure.”

He described the remaining habitable zones as fragmented and unsafe, and compared the humanitarian conditions there to having more than 2 million crammed into Manhattan but

“instead of buildings, the area is strewn with the rubble of demolished and burnt-out structures without any infrastructure or basic support.”

The UN Population Fund has reported that an estimated 700,000 women and girls in Gaza are experiencing “a nightmare” situation as a result of lack of access to menstrual hygiene products, water and privacy. It said it has nearly 170 truckloads of supplies ready for delivery but they remain blocked from entering Gaza.

Meanwhile, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that nine more aid workers from five organizations have died in Gaza since last Thursday, bringing the death toll among aid personnel to 107 in 2025, and 479 since the war began in October 2023; 326 members of UN staff are among the dead.

OCHA also highlighted the significant obstacles humanitarian operations faced in June. Out of nearly 400 attempts to coordinate with Israeli authorities, 44 percent were denied, and 10 percent were initially approved but later obstructed. Only a third of the missions were fully facilitated, while 12 percent were canceled due to logistical or security issues.

Four out of 16 humanitarian coordination efforts were denied on Thursday alone, Dujarric said, hindering efforts to relocate medical supplies and clear debris.

“The space left for civilians to stay is shrinking by the day,” he added.

In his statement, Guterres underscored the fact that international humanitarian law is “unambiguous” in its requirement for civilians to be protected and their basic needs met.

He warned that the continuing blockade on fuel deliveries, now entering an 18th week, threatens to bring remaining humanitarian operations to a halt.

“Without an urgent influx of fuel, incubators will shut down, ambulances will be unable to reach the injured and sick, and water cannot be purified,” he said, adding that the UN and its partners might soon be unable to deliver even the limited amount of aid that remains in Gaza.

Guterres repeated his call for “full, safe and sustained humanitarian access,” and said the UN has a ready, proven plan to deliver aid “safely and at scale” to civilians across the territory.

He also renewed his appeal for an “immediate, permanent ceasefire” and the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” and stressed that all parties involved in the conflict must uphold their obligations under international law.