'The world does not know that the families of these journalists were threatened and one by one they too have been killed.'
"A vast majority of our schools in Gaza have been completely destroyed. They have bombed our universities and educational institutions, right from the beginning of the war," Palestinian Ambassador to India Abdullah M Abu Shawesh tells Rediff Senior Contributor Neeta Kolhatkar about Israel's genocide in Gaza in the first of a two-part interview.
India till recently shared a close relationship with Palestine. India was the first country to recognise an independent Palestine, but now we have seen a significant shift in this foreign policy, with Israel helping India strategically in defence matters.
You asked a very important question. We have been seeing this shift.
Since when?
Shrugs... smiles.
We have already seen the change, but don't ask me since when. India was the first country to recognise an independent Palestine, but now, the relationship with India is not like before.
Things may have shifted but your foreign ministry spokesperson issued a statement condemning the killings of Palestinian journalists, which is important.
Now I will like to share something about the relations between our two countries. There was an ambassador a few years ago from India in Palestine, Zikr-ur-Rehman.
He knew a lot about our history and had given me a detailed understanding of both our countries. We dream one day that Yasser Arafat will be laid to rest in Jerusalem, we have not been able to bury him there as yet.
But you will be glad to know Indian freedom fighter and journalist Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar is buried in Jerusalem in the Khatuniyya madrasa compound near the Dome of the Rock.
He died in London on January 4, 1931 and the grand mufti of Palestine insisted Maulana Jauhar's body be interred there.
For an Indian to be buried there means it carries a lot of significance.
Maulana Jauhar was one of the founders of the All India Muslim League, the Jamia Millia Ismailia, was a leading figure in the Khilafat Movement and the Indian National Congress.
Can you tell us if reportage from Gaza is being deliberately obliterated by Israel?
The world knows the truth of what has been happening in Gaza only because of these brave journalists from Palestine.
Till now the entire world depended on these Palestinian journalists to learn the truth of this war.
Now with their killings this press freedom will be erased, that is why your government needs to put pressure on Israel to open the borders and allow independent journalists to go, see and report the truth.
Israel has smeared journalists on posters, called them contractors and workers of Hamas.
Western countries have controlled the narrative of October 7, 2023. What about the previous ethnic cleansing?
Be it 1917 or 1948, the world does not know because the Palestinian voice has been silenced.
Only after Jewish writers and journalists began writing about those wars, is the truth now being allowed.
Our voice is completely blocked and banned for a very long time.
Our versions have always been rejected by most Western countries.
Israel has deleted all evidence of war crimes.
The Israeli archive has made accessible only two percent of information, the rest 98 percent is 'classified'.
Information like the killings, arrests, the 10,000 and more prisoners in their jails and concentration camps is kept away from us.
There is no documentation of such crimes during the previous ethnic cleansing of Nakba, in 1948.
It is either not being made accessible or may be destroyed. What we have is only oral history which is countered by the Zionists.
This time, the media people decided to document all the evidence of Israeli army and government crimes so that our children can bear witness to it.
Some of these journalists have been on the move every night, so that they are not attacked.
They have always camped outside the hospitals and what has Israel done?
They used missiles, chemical weapons and explosives against journalists, schools, doctors, hospitals.
Take Waeh Dahdouh. The Israelis killed his entire family.
Walaa Al Jabri, a pregnant lady journalist, was killed with her entire family when her home in Gaza was bombed.
It is time for the journalists of the world to find out these truths.
Palestinians, specially journalists, have been called terrorists by Israel.
The Israeli government has claimed all citizens in Gaza are contractors and enablers for Hamas.
Is this to divert the world's attention from the genocide?
We are resisting occupation by Israel and for this resistance we are being called anarchists and terrorists.
All of us citizens are resisting this occupation. The narrative by the Zionist government and Israelis is we are killing innocent Jewish people, which is not true.
Now, the main narrative they have manipulated is that the war began because of the October 7 attack by Hamas.
This is not true, it is not the first time they have attacked us.
From January 1, 2023 till October 6 and from October 8, the Israelis have continued to attack us.
Why is nobody talking about it?
Does the world know, from January 1 to October 6, 2023, more than 400 Palestinian people have been assassinated?
One of the targets was a two-and-a-half-year-old child.
The Israelis have been targeting journalists and their families. The world does not know that the families of these journalists were threatened and one by one they too have been killed.
The day they planned and killed five media people, Anas al-Sharif, a renowned journalist of Al Jazeera, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on August 10.
They threatened Al-Sharif, again and again. On the night they decided to eliminate him, Al Sharif was in a tent marked 'PRESS' outside the al-Shifa hospital.
Along with him, the Israelis killed five others: Mohammed Qreiqeh, Al Jazeera correspondent; photographers Ibrahim Thaher and Mohamed Nofal, freelance photojournalist Mohammed al-Khalidi and cameraman Momen Aliwa.
If resisting Israel means being a terrorist, then all of us who have resisted the occupiers will continue to resist in future.
They had threatened Al Sharif to stop (reporting on the Israeli occupation of Gaza) and when he did not stop, they killed him. They also threatened to eliminate his entire family.
They have targeted all the families of journalists who have been doing a fantastic job of showing the truth.
Why are they attacking schools and your educational system?
Palestinians are highly educated people. Even though I was born in a camp, let me tell you, we have given importance to higher education.
All our people have at least a master's degree. They are doctors, scholars, writers, medical professionals, scientists, many are in NASA, and have studied across the world, including in India.
We are indebted to all of you for allowing our people to study.
So now the Israelis are attacking all our schools.
One of the main goals of this war is to destroy the education system in Gaza.
A vast majority of our schools in Gaza have been completely destroyed. They targeted 250-280 professors in the universities in Gaza.
They have bombed our universities and educational institutions, right from the beginning of the war.
Due to the war in Gaza, the lives of 625,000 children have been impacted and severely disrupted the lives and livelihoods of 22,564 teachers.
In all, 800,000 children in Gaza alone have been prevented by Israel from their fundamental right to education in the Gaza Strip for the second consecutive year.
We are fortunate that India has been supportive of providing our students education, from the early 1970s and even today.
The Americans have accused us of spreading hate and motivating our students to learn our history and what happened to us in the ethnic cleansing all these years.
The Americans want us to turn a blind eye to those events and have been forcing our people living in Palestine, who are born in refugee camps, not to ask why they were born there.
Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff