While talking about Qatar’s mediation role, Sheikh Tamim highlighted Israel’s lack of willingness to reach a ceasefire and stop its attacks in the region.
Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani has slammed Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip and the latest attacks in Lebanon at the 79th United Nations General Assembly in New York.
In yet another powerful address on Tuesday, Sheikh Tamim dedicated most of his speech on Israel’s “barbaric” and “heinous” aggression in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children.
“This is not a war within the international relations’ well-known and common concept of war, but rather it is a crime of genocide by means of the most sophisticated weapons against people besieged in a detention camp where there is no escape from the barrage of aerial bombing,” he said.
Sheikh Tamim has long dedicated a part of his UNGA speeches to the Palestinian cause, and in his remarks this year, he challenged the notion of Israel’s right to self-defence in the Gaza Strip and its refusal to reach a solution to end the war.
“We oppose violence and the targeting of innocent civilians by any party, but a year after this war[…]it is no longer tenable to talk about Israel’s right to defend itself without being complicit in justifying the crime,” he explained.
With the war nearing its one-year mark, Sheikh Tamim also called out the lack of international action and the failure of the Security Council to implement a resolution aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
He stressed that “it is no longer plausible for any official to claim” the lack of knowledge on the reality in the Gaza Strip.
“The failure to intervene to stop the aggression is a major scandal,” he said.
He underlined Israel’s attempt “to impose a fait accompli on Palestinians and the world with all types of force”.
“The ongoing brutal war has fired the coup de grâce at international legitimacy and inflicted serious damage on the credibility of the post World War II concepts on which the international community was founded,” Sheikh Tamim said.
Qatar is currently playing a crucial mediation role alongside Egypt and the United States between Israel and Hamas in the hopes of reaching a captives release deal and a ceasefire.
The mediation efforts have stalled for months since the expiration of a week-long truce last November that saw the release of 109 Israeli captives in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, most of who were women and children.
While talking about Qatar’s mediation, Sheikh Tamim highlighted Israel’s lack of willingness to reach a deal, especially with the assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Iran on July 31.
Notably, Sheikh Tamim was the only Arab leader at Haniyeh’s funeral prayers in Qatar.
“It is a mediation amidst fierce war and complex circumstances, during which one party would not hesitate to assassinate counterpart political leaders with whom it negotiates, such as the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh,” he said, in his first such public remarks on the late Hamas chief’s killing.
Marginalisation of Palestinian cause
When speaking before the UNGA about Palestine, Sheikh Tamim pointed to attempts by certain actors intent on marginalising the Palestinian cause.
“There are those who are tempted by the possibility of either marginalising this issue to get rid of its burden, or seeing it vanish without resolving it, but the Palestinian cause is resistant to marginalisation,” the amir said.
He added that the cause is a matter concerning indigenous peoples on their ancestral land, subjected to a settler-colonial occupation.
“This occupation has taken the form of an apartheid system in the twenty-first century,” he went on to say, questioning how a profound injustice can be ignored for so long.
With an absence of action to address the situation in the Gaza Strip and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Sheikh Tamim reiterated that “no peace process is taking place, but rather a genocide”.
Israeli aggression in Lebanon
The Qatari leader’s speech also came amid intensified Israeli escalations in Lebanon, with the potential of triggering a regional war.
On Monday, the Israeli military unleashed a wave of air strikes on densely populated civilian areas in Lebanon, killing at least 558 people in what has become the single bloodiest day since the country’s 1975-1990 Civil War.
Regions targeted included southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut.
Israel attempted to justify the deadly attacks by alleging that these locations are Hezbollah sites. This came days after after Israel rigged communication devices in Lebanon and set them off in civilian areas.
“Apart from committing a major crime by rigging wireless communication devices and exploding them simultaneously across thousands of people with total disregard for their identity or location, Israel is currently waging a war on Lebanon,” the Qatari leader said.
Sheikh Tamim underscored the need to reach a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip in order to avert an all-out regional war and halt the attacks in neighbouring Lebanon.
“This is what we have repeatedly warned against if the brutal war on Gaza doesn’t end. This systematic destructive war must stop, and this is the choice before Israel as its leaders know very well,” he noted.
The amir reaffirmed his country’s commitment to securing conflict resolution through peaceful means in several countries, including Yemen, Sudan and Syria in order to achieve a better future for their citizens.
“We affirm that the State of Qatar will spare no effort in working with its international partners and the United Nations to firmly consolidate the pillars of peace, security, sustainable development, human rights and the rule of law at all levels,” he concluded.
