COLOMBO – The Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine (SLCSP) while extending is t condolences to the victims of the ongoing attacks between Israel and Palestine, have expressed grave concerns about the escalation of violence and called for a just and lasting solution to the conflict based on the creation of two States that allow the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination.

In a statement issued on Monday (9), SLCSP has also raised concerns about the lopsided global response that continues to disregard Israeli injustices and violation of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people over the past 75 year.

The statement in full:

The Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine (SLCSP) extends its heartfelt condolences to the victims of the ongoing attacks between Israel and Palestine amidst grave concerns about the escalation of violence between Israel and Palestine.  The SLCSP is also seriously concerned about the lopsided global response that continues to disregard Israeli injustices and violation of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people over the past 75 year.

Though the loss of lives cannot be condoned in anyway, the present attack by Palestine on Israel is an inevitable development, a reaction to the decades of suffering of the Palestinian people under a brutal blockade and occupation. It is also a response to the deafening silence of the world, which even in this instance has labelled the attack an “unprovoked terrorist act” while insisting that Israel has the “right to defend itself”.

Systematic invasion and illegal occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel has reduced a country which comprised 1,300 townships and villages in 1948 to just the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Approximately 5.9 million Palestinians driven out of their homes are living as refuges in the Middle East, rendering Palestinians the largest stateless community worldwide today.

United Nations reports that settler violence against Palestinians has seen a substantial uptick over the last year, while Gaza has been under debilitating siege for 16 years, with residents denied freedom of movement, half the population unemployed, one-third not having enough food to eat, and the strip suffering from an energy and water crisis. It is this context that is missing in the global response to the Hamas attack.

The Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine, while calling for a de-escalation of the violence, demands an immediate end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, blockade and atrocities committed on its people, and Israel be held accountable for its actions.

SLCSP also demands that the US and EU countries desist from providing additional munition and other military support to Israel and mediate instead to de-escalate the disproportionate violence. We also call on the United Nations Security Council to fulfill its mandate and put an end to the blatant impunity of Israel, and spearhead a process for an acceptable solution that ensures justice prevails, rights are safeguards, lives are saved and peace prevails in the region.

We call for a just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the creation of two States that allow the Palestinian people to exercise their right to self-determination in an independent and sovereign state within the 1967 borders.

A realistic peace in the Middle East will remain a mirage until and unless the world talks peace with the Palestinians. For only when Palestinians are ensured their full and inalienable rights to self-governance and self-determination, their right live free from fear and oppression, their right to a life with dignity, can the escalation of violence be averted, and lasting peace established in the Middle East.

–SLCSP