This year has been the deadliest since 2015 for Palestinians, with Israel carrying out more killings and raids in the West Bank.
A third Palestinian intifada, or uprising, might break out amid rising Israeli brutality in occupied territories with an absence of an international reaction, the Gulf state’s former prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani (HBJ) said on Sunday.
“What is happening in the occupied Palestinian territories of cold killings[…]without any reaction, condemnation or protest at least, whether from Arab or international capitals, confirms to me that what Israel is doing is always far from punishment or criticism,” HBJ said in a Twitter thread.
HBJ, who also previously served as Qatar’s foreign minister, added that the lack of global action “encourages” Israel to continue its crimes while “feeling assured that it is immune from any criticism”.
“I expect that the occupation’s brutality will increase and that a large numbers of martyrs will fall, and that a new Palestinian uprising [intifada] may break out that will be more intense than the previous one twenty years ago,” he said.
The Intifada refers to uprisings against the Israeli regime, the first which took place between 1987 and 1993, where more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed.
The second Intifada took place between 2000 and 2005, where Israel killed at least 4,973 Palestinians. This was also the time when the whole world watched the cold-blooded killing of 12-year-old Palestinian Muhammad Al Durrah by the Zionist state.
The disturbing image of Durrah shielding behind his father during his last moments has been engraved in the memories of people worldwide, including generations of Palestinians.
HBJ’s remarks come amid heightened bloodshed by the Zionist state that has only increased in recent months, with occupation forces (IOF) carrying out more violent raids in the West Bank.
Palestinian youth are being killed on an almost daily basis in the West Bank for resisting the illegal occupation of their own land.
On Thursday alone, the IOF shot and killed at least four Palestinians in the West Bank, including siblings Jawad and Thafer Abdul Rahman Rimawi, 22 and 21.
Jawad was a new Business Administration graduate from Birzeit University as his brother was completing his final year at the same institution.
On Friday, Israeli crimes were further exposed to the world in a harrowing video that showed an IOF soldier shoot and kill a Palestinian youth in Nablus.
“An Israeli soldier extrajudiciously kills a young Palestinian man in Hawwara, south of the Occupied West Bank city of Nablus. They then stole the body and took it away in an Israeli military vehicle. How long must we normalise this obscene dehumanisation?” Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, the emmy-nominated journalist, tweeted.
According to Palestine’s ministry of health, Israel has shot and killed 153 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since the start of the year, the deadliest since 2015.
Meanwhile, ActionAid said that the IOF and armed Israeli settlers have killed more than 200 Palestinians, out of which 51 are children, in 2022. This year also saw a rise in Israeli settlement expansion and demolitions of Palestinian properties, as the Gaza siege continues.
Qatar has long called for the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital while staunchly refusing to normalise with Israel.
In July, Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani warned that tensions and instability in the Middle East will continue as long as Israel’s violations of international law in Palestine persists.
“The most major source of tension and instability will linger unless Israel stop its practices and violations of international law reflected in building settlements, changing Jerusalem’s character and continuing to impose a siege on Gaza,” the amir told the Jeddah Security and Development Summit.
