Key Points
- Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas delivered his speech to the United Nations General Assembly via video.
- He described the Israeli actions in Gaza as a “war of genocide, destruction, starvation, and displacement”.
- Abbas stated Hamas will have no role in governing Gaza after the war and must surrender its weapons.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned Israel’s military offensive in Gaza while saying Palestinians “reject” Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel in 2023 and pledging the militant group would have no role in governing Gaza after the war ends.
Abbas addressed the United Nations General Assembly in New York via video, after the United States made the unusual decision to deny him a visa to attend the conference.
He told the General Assembly that Palestinians in Gaza “have been facing a war of genocide, destruction, starvation and displacement” by Israel.
Abbas said Israel was committing a “war crime and a crime against humanity”, and called its nearly two-year-long assault on Gaza “one of the most horrific chapters of humanitarian tragedy of the 20th and 21st century”.
Israel is also fighting a genocide case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. It has repeatedly rejected such accusations.
Despite laying out in gruesome detail the death and destruction in Gaza, Abbas said Palestinian authorities “reject” the action Hamas carried out on 7 October 2023, and that it does not represent their people or “their just struggle for freedom and independence”.
He also laid out his vision for what government would look like in territories once the war is over, saying that the Palestinian Authority is “ready to bear full responsibility for governance and security”.
Abbas’ Palestinian Authority exerts limited control over parts of the West Bank under agreements reached through the Oslo peace accords signed in 1993.
It controlled the Gaza Strip up until 2006, when Hamas won parliamentary elections and took control of the Strip following a brief civil war in 2007. It does not have a presence in Gaza.
Abbas said “Hamas will have no role to play in governance” and will have to hand over its weapons to the Palestinian authorities.
“There can be no justice if Palestine is not freed,” he said.
Around 1,200 people were killed in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October 2023, with more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s offensive has since killed more than 65,500 Palestinians, left much of the enclave in ruins and wrought a humanitarian disaster with grave shortages of food, drinking water and safe shelter, according to the Gaza health ministry.
In a short but resolute speech, Abbas thanked the world leaders who have stood up for Palestinians throughout the Gaza war, saying that the recent recognition of Palestinian statehood has presented his people with hope for peace and an end to the conflict.
But he said symbolic recognition is not enough to address the present moment.
“The time has come for the international community to do right by the Palestinian people, so that they may obtain their rights for their legitimate rights to be rid of the occupation and to not remain a hostage to the temperament of Israeli politics, which denies our rights and continues in their injustice, oppression and aggression,” Abbas said.
Before concluding, Abbas sent a message of hope to the Palestinian people, saying that no matter how long the suffering continues, “its results will not break our will to live and survive”.
“The dawn of freedom will emerge, and the flag of Palestine will fly high in our skies as a symbol of dignity, steadfastness and being free from the occupation,” he said.
“We will not leave our homeland. We will not leave our lands.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will address the UN on Friday, said in a statement before Abbas’ speech that Western recognition “does not obligate Israel in any way” and that “there will be no Palestinian state”.
Israel struck houses and tents in central and southern Gaza on Thursday, crushing families inside and killing at least 17 Palestinians, local health officials said.