Palestine PM Shtayyeh urges UK to call for ceasefire in Gaza

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh urged the Speaker of the British House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, to submit a proposal to the British government calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, according to reports by the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The request was made during Shtayyeh’s meeting with Hoyle yesterday, in his office in Ramallah, during which he stressed “the need to not remain limited to a temporary truce, and to stop the aggression against the residents of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, in addition to opening the crossings with the Gaza Strip, not only the Rafah land crossing.”

The prime minister also called for “an end to the attempts to forcibly displace the people of the Gaza Strip from the north to the south and outside the Gaza Strip, and for Israel not to occupy the Gaza Strip or seize parts of it as buffer zones.”

“Israel wants to eliminate the two-state solution and any opportunity for the establishment of a Palestinian state, by seizing more lands and building settlements, daily incursions into the Palestinian areas, Al-Aqsa Mosque and holy places, and daily killings and arrests in the West Bank,” said Shtayyeh.

Shtayyeh also called on the House of Commons to urge the British government to recognise the Palestinian state, such as supporting the two-state solution based on UN resolutions and international law.

On Friday, a four-day temporary humanitarian truce entered into force between Israel and the Palestinian factions in the besieged Gaza Strip. During the first three days of the truce, Hamas released 40 Israelis (women and children) and 18 foreigners, while Israel released 117 Palestinian detainees (women and children) during the same period.

The truce agreement includes the release of 50 Israeli prisoners of war from Gaza, in exchange for the release of 150 Palestinians from Israeli prisons, and the entry of hundreds of trucks loaded with humanitarian, relief, medical and fuel aid to be distributed in all areas of the Gaza Strip.

For 48 days, between 7 October and 23 November, the Israeli army launched a devastating aggression on Gaza that killed more than 14,854 Palestinians, including 6,150 children and more than 4,000 women, in addition to wounding more than 36,000, more than 75 per cent of which are children and women, according to the Government Media Office in Gaza.

Rights groups and experts have warned Israel is carrying out a genocide in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Genocide in Gaza: MEMO in Conversation with Raz Segal