From Aidoghie Paulinus, Abuja
Palestinian Ambassador to Nigeria, Abdullah Abu Shawesh, has explained the rationale behind the attack against Israel.
Shawesh, who briefed journalists in Abuja, traced the history of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, saying Palestine had the right to defend itself.
“Any country around the world has the right to defend itself. Nigeria has the right to defend itself; Germany has the right to defend itself, but also, the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves and also have the fundamental rights and the legitimate rights to liberate themselves and to become a freed people,” Shawesh said.
Asked if the recent attack against Israel was an attempt by Palestine to defend itself, Shawesh answered in the affirmative.
“The Palestinians, all the time, are trying to defend themselves and all the time, trying to use their legitimate right. This is their legitimate right to try to liberate ourselves.”
Shawesh further said it was the legitimate right of the Palestinians not only to defend themselves, but to liberate themselves.
He said the event of last Saturday was another step out of tens of blackmails of the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Shawesh also said he was sure no one knew what happened to the Palestinians last Friday, 24 hours before the event whereby several Palestinians were maimed and killed in the streets by Israeli forces. “No one is trying to shed light on those several Palestinian people who were killed just 24 hours before Saturday.”
Shawesh added that two weeks ago, an Israeli radical messianic group that was patrolling the City of Jerusalem was spitting and slapping all Christian Palestinians and Christian visitors to the Holy Land.
“The issue is, we cannot submit only the issue of Saturday. There are many things to talk about,” Shawesh said.
Responding, Israeli Ambassador to Nigeria, Michael Freeman, said the action of Hamas was a murderous rampage whereby they murdered men, women, and children.
“We’ve got a report just now, in the last 10 minutes, that in one of the small communities (though we went into the troops, we only manage to go in today), we have discovered 40 dead babies, a number of who have been decapitated. They had their heads cut off, babies. This is what Hamas did on Saturday. They murdered people, they shot children in front of their parents, they shot parents in front of their children, they kidnapped babies as young as six months and took them to Gaza; they have taken over 85 years old holocaust survivors and taken them into Gaza.
“They have kidnapped children, they have kidnapped women, they have kidnapped dads, mothers, grandmas, and grandpas. Those whom they were unable to kidnap, they shot. In one particular case, there was somebody they tried to kidnap, she was elderly, she was infirm, she couldn’t walk, so they burnt her alive,” Freeman said.
The Israeli ambassador further said the Israeli government was able to know the atrocities committed by Hamas because Hamas were so proud of what they have done and filmed the scenes of the attacks and posted them on social media, using victims’ social media accounts.
While saying thousands of Israelis were murdered in one day, Freeman stated that they were the greatest numbers of Israelis killed in one day since the holocaust.
“But they did not only kill from Israelis, they killed from other countries as well. They killed Arabs, they killed Israeli-Arabs, they killed from many different countries and kidnapped over a hundred Israeli citizens who are now being held in Gaza,” Freeman added.
The envoy concluded that Israel is going to react and has declared war on Hamas.
He, however, said it was important to state that it was not a war between Israel and Palestine, but about Israel and Hamas, about good and evil, about civilisation and barbarism.