Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh today said that the Israeli government's decision to deduct new amounts of money from the clearance funds under the pretext that this money goes for Gaza with a value of $140 million every month is political and aims to separate the Gaza Strip from the West Bank, which will not be accepted. Speaking at the start of the weekly Palestinian cabinet meeting held in Ramallah, the Prime Minister stressed that Gaza is an integral part of the Palestinian national fabric and an essential geographical component of the State of Palestine. 'We have been committed to our responsibilities there for 30 years, even after the division, and we will continue to do so,' he said. 'This money is our people's money, and we will continue to demand it in its entirety until we get it,' he said, noting that there is an international intervention in this matter, expressing hope that it will yield the desired result in the coming days. The Palestinian Authority (PA) has refused to accept the reduced clearance fund after a decision by the Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, known for his hatred of the Palestinians, to deduct the money the PA allocates for services in the Gaza Strip from the monthly tax revenues Israel collects on behalf of the PA. The Prime Minister said that the scenes from Gaza are beyond human endurance: children being killed by bombs, hunger and fear, wounded without treatment, and ambulances being bombed on live broadcasts and no longer answering the distress calls. 'How many more Palestinians does Israel have to kill in order to take revenge, how many homes must be destroyed until the war machine is satisfied, and how many wounded must bleed so that the invaders can enjoy the sound of the children's anguish and the scenes of the mass killing of innocent people?' wondered Shtayyeh. The Prime Minister condemned the Israeli Minister of Heritage's inflammatory statements regarding dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip and said: 'He was not satisfied with 10,000 martyrs, more than 25,000 wounded, and a million displaced people, but he also wants to see Hiroshima in Gaza and to see genocide achieved with the nuclear bombs Israel possesses. This bloodthirsty man wants to kill for the sake of killing." Shtayyeh reviewed the racist statements inciting the killing of the Palestinian people by a number of Israeli officials and pointed out that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu justifies killing, massacres, and genocide, while his Minister of Defense described the Palestinian people as 'human animals,' and General Khuila Eiland called for creating a humanitarian crisis in Gaza to become unlivable. The Prime Minister called on the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant against the Israeli war criminals as a precautionary step in order to stop the killing machine, saluting the countries that submitted referrals to the court to prosecute the criminals. He called on people of good conscience and advocates of human values to act quickly to stop the aggression that turned the Gaza Valley into a valley of blood. 'Gaza, immersed in injustice and darkness, needs electricity and water now. Gaza is under the rubble and there is a need to stop the aggression to search for survivors under the rubble. In Gaza, thousands of children are losing their lives as the world is preparing to celebrate International Children's Day. I call on the United Nations to cancel this celebration,' he said, showing pictures of Palestinian children who were absent from their schools and kindergartens due to the Israeli killing machine. Shtayyeh also saluted all those who took to the streets in cities around the world in support of Palestine, calling on the rest of the countries to raise their voices and begin measures against mass murder, forced displacement, and the siege that deprives people of a livelihood and a drop of water, calling on the Red Cross to live up to its responsibilities and act immediately to stop the violations and abuse which Palestinian prisoners are facing inside Israeli occupation prisons.
Source: National News Agency - Lebanon