Asia Pacific Report
The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) has called on the New Zealand government to follow through on its demands that Israel complies with international law following the abduction and beating of citizens by the Israeli military in international waters in the Mediterranean last week.
PSNA national spokesperson Rinad Tamimi said the government had been “very explicit” in its recent warnings to Israel that New Zealand did not expect a repeat of Israeli forces “brutally capturing New Zealanders” while they were trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the besieged Gaza enclave.
“Anyone who has seen the pictures of Invercargill resident Julien Blondel’s face or the reports of Jay O’Connor suffering from concussion and a likely broken rib will know that once more Israel has called the New Zealand government’s bluff,” she said in a statement.
“The Global Sumud Aid Flotilla’s sole intention is to deliver aid to Palestinians still under Israeli attack and starvation in Gaza.
“The world is looking at the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Iran. But the situation for Palestinians in Gaza is no less dire than when the ceasefire there was meant to have started last October but Israel continues its daily killing of mainly women and children.
“The volume of food is insufficient and lacking nutrition. It is incredibly expensive. Promised tents haven’t arrived.
“Medicine has run out. Reconstruction hasn’t started. Israel is still expanding its yellow-line ‘no-go’ zone.”
Tamimi, who was elected at the PSNA annual general meeting in Rotorua last weekend, said she knew the New Zealand government had already proved it “doesn’t care about Palestinians in Gaza”.
But she added that the government could not avoid its responsibility to protect New Zealanders going about lawful business.
“The government can’t simply opt out of its duties to its citizens by telling them it’s too dangerous to try helping Palestinians in Gaza.
“Israel has killed people on flotillas before. It has captured New Zealanders and brutalised them previously. Now it has done it again.”
Tamimi said the least New Zealand could do was to issue a formal rebuke by calling-in the Israeli ambassador.
“The ambassador should be expelled as far as I’m concerned. But if it was good enough for John Key’s government to reprimand Israel through a formal rebuke, then why can’t [Foreign Minister] Winston Peters do at least the same?”
Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz