The Palestinian envoy to the United Kingdom says that oppression in Palestine did not start on October 7, rather 106 years ago.
Palestinian Ambassador to the UK Husam Zomlot said that Israel’s oppression in his country did not start on Oct. 7 but 106 years ago, Anadolu Agency reports.
Speaking to Anadolu at the seventh TRT World Forum in Istanbul on Saturday, Zomlot said: “It all started when Britain promised our lands to others without consulting us and turned us, the Palestinian nation, into non-Jewish minorities.”
“The quest for freedom and justice by the Palestinian people should now be acknowledged. We need to address issues of human rights, national rights, as well as international consensus and law,” Zomlot noted.
“What Israel understands is military solutions, violence, intimidating civilians, and exerting pressure on civilian communities,” according to Zomlot.
He noted that Israel’s ability to commit all this cruelty is only possible by dehumanizing Palestinians.
“You must have heard. Israeli ministers called us ‘human-like animals.’ Since you cannot kill ordinary people in this way, you have to dehumanize them,” he said.
Zomlot, who gained attention with his statements and appearances on numerous Western television channels such as CNN and BBC, heavily criticized Israel’s efforts to portray itself as a victim.
Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by Hamas in October, killing at least 17,700 Palestinians and injuring more than 48,780 others, according to health authorities in the Palestinian enclave.
The Israeli death toll in the Hamas attack stood at 1,200, according to official figures.
Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, in early November reiterated his warning about Israel’s plan for another “Nakba” in Gaza and, as proof, he shared video footage showing mass displacement of people in Gaza from north to south, according to Anadolu Agency.
“Invading Israeli tanks are in Gaza to force the mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes,” Zomlot wrote on X, sharing video footage purportedly belonging to a group of Palestinians forcibly displaced from the northern part of the blockaded Gaza Strip.
Recalling his previous warnings that Israel is planning a second Nakba, the Ambassador added:
“And the world is still debating whether to call for a #CeasefireForGaza?”
The Nakba, or catastrophe, refers to the exodus of Palestinians from their lands in 1948 when the State of Israel was created.
Israel has launched relentless air and ground attacks on the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by Hamas on October 7.
At least 18,000 Palestinians, mostly children, women, and elderly people, have been killed since the start of the Israel offensive on Gaza, according to the Health Ministry in the blockaded enclave.
