<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-top-anchor"></div>
<div id="gmail-toolbar" class="gmail-toolbar-container">
</div><div class="gmail-container" lang="en-US" dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-header gmail-reader-header gmail-reader-show-element">
<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/stop-pressuring-the-icj-main-points-from-hamas-press-conference-in-beirut-today/">palestinechronicle.com</a>
<div class="gmail-domain-border"></div>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">‘Stop Pressuring the ICJ’ - Main Points from Hamas Press Conference in Beirut Today</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">January 10, 2024<br></div></div>
<hr>
<div class="gmail-content">
<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div>
<img src="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Hamdan_Conference2_RNN.png" alt="" title="Hamdan_Conference2_RNN" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" width="391" height="262" style="margin-right: 25px;">
Top Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, held a press conference in Beirut. (Photo: via RNN)
<p><strong>By <a href="https://www.palestinechronicle.com/writers/palestine-chronicle-staff" title="Display all articles for Palestine Chronicle Staff">Palestine Chronicle Staff</a></strong> </p>
<blockquote>
<h3><span>Top Hamas official, Osama Hamdan, held a press conference in
Beirut, Lebanon on Wednesday, declaring the Palestinian movement’s
position on several issues. </span></h3>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Hamdan criticized US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken who had
just concluded a trip to several Middle Eastern countries, including
Israel. </span></p>
<p><span>“Blinken comes to sell illusions to all the countries he meets
with, looking with one eye, adopting the narrative of the (Israeli)
occupation, and supporting its agenda in liquidating the Palestinian
cause and exterminating its people,” Hamdan said. </span></p>
<p><span>The Hamas official welcomed the latest action taken by the United Nations to “end the suffering of the Palestinian civilians.” </span></p>
<p><span>“We await urgent action from Ms. Sigrid Kaag, who started her
mission last Monday as appointed by UN Secretary-General António
Guterres .. to end the suffering of Palestinian civilians in all areas
of the Gaza Strip, and to overcome the pressures and dictates of the
occupation.” </span></p>
<p><span>Below are selected excerpts from Hamdan’s comments at the press conference: </span></p>
<h4><b>US-Funded Genocide</b></h4>
<p><span>“We stand with all pride and honor in the face of the legendary
steadfastness shown by our people in the Gaza Strip, enduring the pain,
hunger, deprivation, and the daily horrific crimes and massacres
committed against them.</span></p>
<p><span>“We send a message of blessing and pride to the men of the
Al-Qassam Brigades, Saraya Al-Quds, and all the heroes of the
Palestinian Resistance, who continue to humiliate the officers and
soldiers of the occupation army and disgrace their image, making their
leaders pay for occupying our land and for their crimes against our
people, land, and sanctities.</span></p>
<p><span>“The occupation continues its Nazi aggression and genocide for
the 96th day, with brutality, criminality, and sadism against over two
million Palestinian citizens in the Gaza Strip, using all types of
internationally banned weapons and bombs, fully supplied by the United
States of America.</span></p>
<p><span>“The Nazi occupation’s crimes are not limited to the Gaza
Strip, but extend throughout the West Bank and occupied Al-Quds, through
the siege of cities and camps, cold-blooded assassination crimes,
arrests, and systematic destruction of homes and infrastructure.</span></p>
<p><span>“Since the beginning of the Battle of the Al-Aqsa Flood, more
than 353 martyrs have ascended in the occupied West Bank. The world
witnessed how an Israeli military vehicle—deliberately and
vengefully—ran over one of the martyrs in Tulkarem after he was shot by
Nazi occupation soldiers. In Jenin, a Zionist drone targeted a group of
young men, martyring 7 of them, including 4 brothers.</span></p>
<p><span>“This Nazi occupation has committed every imaginable crime, in
blatant violation of all laws, norms, and international humanitarian
law; from mass killing, forced displacement, arresting innocent
civilians, stripping and torturing them, and photographing them, to the
systematic targeting of children, kidnapping, and shooting civilians
after removing them from shelters, and destroying all aspects of human
life in the Gaza Strip, including hospitals, UNRWA shelters, schools,
universities, mosques, churches, service centers, and even desecrating
graves and stealing organs of the martyrs.</span></p>
<h4><b>Sigrid Kaag’s Mission </b></h4>
<p><span>“The people of Gaza face the danger of death every day, with
increasing numbers of displaced people and a lack of adequate shelters,
along with scarce aid reaching all areas of the Strip.</span></p>
<p><span>“The catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip
warns of a significant increase in the number of martyrs, wounded, sick,
and displaced. Those who don’t die from bombing, burning, and sniping
with Zionist-American weapons die from hunger, thirst, and disease.</span></p>
<p><span>“We await urgent action from Ms. Sigrid Kaag, who started her
mission last Monday as appointed by UN Secretary-General António
Guterres, as the Senior Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs and
Reconstruction in Gaza, to end the suffering of Palestinian civilians in
all areas of the Gaza Strip, and to overcome the pressures and dictates
of the occupation.</span></p>
<p><span>“What is urgently needed is the sufficient flow of aid to all
areas of the Gaza Strip, especially the northern areas that are facing
actual famine.</span></p>
<p><span>“(The flow of aid should also) ensure the entry of fuel to
hospitals, bakeries, water pumping stations, and sewage treatment
plants, and to operate the civil work facilities destroyed by the
occupation. This is an urgent responsibility and a pressing priority for
Mrs. Kaag, and all concerned countries, governments, and UN
institutions, leading to a halt of this barbaric Nazi aggression against
our people.</span></p>
<h4><b>‘Third Phase’ Propaganda </b></h4>
<p><span>“For more than 3 full months, this Nazi enemy has not achieved
any of its aggressive goals. It is trying through the escalation of its
brutal crimes against innocents and civilians, including children and
women, to claim a false victory, but it has not achieved it, and will
not, by the grace of Allah, then by the steadfastness of our people and
the valor of our Resistance.</span></p>
<p><span>“The marketing of the Nazi occupation in partnership with the
American administration of the so-called ‘transition to the third phase
of the war’ is part of a false and black propaganda, exposed to our
people and our Resistance, and a desperate attempt to pass it as an
achievement at the expense of our people’s blood, amidst the
continuation of all forms of massacres and crimes against our people.</span></p>
<p><span>“The Zionist enemy’s prisoners held by the Resistance will not
return alive to their families, unless Netanyahu and his war chiefs
comply with the conditions of the Resistance, the first of which is the
complete and total cessation of their aggression against the Gaza Strip.</span></p>
<h4><b>Blinken ‘Selling Illusions’</b></h4>
<p><span>“With each of his five tours to the region, Blinken comes to
sell illusions to all the countries he meets with, looking with one eye,
adopting the narrative of the occupation, and supporting its agenda in
liquidating the Palestinian cause and exterminating its people.</span></p>
<p><span>“The American administration, through its officials, is still
adopting the misleading narrative and false propaganda of the
occupation, attempting to justify the genocide committed by the
terrorist occupation army against civilians, claiming that the
Palestinian Resistance is embedded among civilians. This is a
transparent policy to absolve the occupation of the bloodshed of
children, women, and elders in Gaza, whose numbers exceed 30,000,
including martyrs and those missing under the rubble.</span></p>
<p><span>“Regarding Blinken’s statement that many countries in the
region are ready to invest in Gaza’s future: we reiterate that the
Palestinian people are the masters of their own destiny, responsible for
self-determination according to their national vision, to achieve their
major goals of freedom, liberation from occupation, and establishing
their independent state with Al-Quds as its capital.</span></p>
<p><span>“We affirm our people’s welcoming stance towards any Arab and
Islamic effort supporting our cause, backing the Resistance, ending the
aggression, removing the occupation and the brutal effects of its
aggression on our people, land, and our Islamic and Christian holy
sites.</span></p>
<p><span>“We again call on the American administration to stop its
policies that hinder efforts to end the genocide waged by the occupation
in Gaza, to immediately work on stopping this criminal aggression, and
to cease manipulating international laws and systems for the benefit of
the Nazi-Zionist entity.</span></p>
<h4><b>Don’t Pressure the ICJ </b></h4>
<p><span>“Regarding the United Nations General Assembly session
yesterday, Tuesday, discussing the use of the veto by the United States
in the Security Council on December 22, 2023, against the resolution to
stop the Zionist aggression on the Gaza Strip, we affirm that the
American administration continues to practice all forms of support for
this Zionist aggression to ensure its continuation and prolong its
duration, serving the occupation and partnering in its criminality and
aggression.</span></p>
<p><span>“The American administration bears political, legal, moral, and
humanitarian responsibility for the suffering, pain, killing, and
displacement of over two million Palestinian citizens in the Gaza Strip.</span></p>
<p><span>“The American administration’s failure to issue United Nations
Security Council resolutions to stop the aggression, and defying the
will and positions of 153 countries in the United Nations General
Assembly demanding a halt to the aggression, makes this administration a
pariah and a sponsor of Zionist terrorism.</span></p>
<p><span>“The positions of this administration and its support for the
occupation and its crimes will increase its political, diplomatic,
popular isolation and damage its alleged moral image, confirming its
relationship and sponsorship of all forms of terrorism in the world.</span></p>
<p><span>“We welcome and appreciate the positions of all countries that
supported the courageous and honorable historical stance of the Republic
of South Africa in raising this lawsuit against the Nazi occupation.</span></p>
<p><span>“We call on the International Court of Justice not to succumb
to the dictates and pressures of the American administration, which is
complicit and responsible for the continuation of the ongoing genocide
against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.</span></p>
<p><span>“The positions expressed by Secretary Blinken regarding the
legal case in the International Court of Justice, stating that “this
step distracts efforts to contain the escalation” and that the genocide
lawsuit is “baseless,” are American attempts to obscure the truth about
the crimes committed by the occupation in Gaza. These are attempts to
impede the function of international justice mechanisms.</span></p>
<p><span>“In this context, we ask: Is the occupation’s killing of about
30,000 civilians, most of them children and women, baseless?! Is the
policy of starvation, dehydration, and cutting off water sources to the
residents of the Gaza Strip baseless?! Is the destruction of 70% of the
Gaza Strip baseless?! Is the destruction of 30 hospitals and the killing
of doctors and journalists baseless?! This is hypocrisy, lies, and a
policy of double standards by the Biden administration, which is
complicit in this genocide.</span></p>
<p><span>“Mercy, glory, and eternity to the martyrs of our people and
our nation in all battlefields, both in the homeland and abroad. We wish
a speedy recovery for the wounded and the sick, freedom for the
prisoners and detainees, and victory and dignity for our people and our
Resistance.”</span></p>
<p><i><span>(The Palestine Chronicle) </span></i></p>
</div></div></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div></div>
</div>
</div>