Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine (SLCSP)

Israel’s barbarity at the Al-Aqsa Mosque condemned

The Sri Lanka Committee for Solidarity with Palestine unreservedly and strongly condemns the recent raid and firing by Israeli forces inside the Al-Aqsa Compound in Jerusalem in which Ramadan Fasting worshippers were injured and, the imposition of additional restrictions on Mosque attendance. The Committee also strongly condemns the ongoing Israeli military operations in a number of cities and villagesthroughout Palestine resulting in many civilian deaths, including that of a child and severe harassment of citizens. 

The Committee points out that all these actions are in complete violation of the sovereignty of Palestine as well as violation of international law applicable to Israel as the ‘occupying power’ in the territories of Palestine. The attack on one of the world’s most revered religious sites, sacred to Christianity, Judaism and Islam, is at the same time, an attack on the lives of a whole nation of people, the Palestinians.

The people of Palestine, having been invaded and occupied and, deprived of much of their homeland to militarily imposed ‘State of Israel’ more than seven decades ago, remain tragically deprived of any proper statehood and even a modicum of self-respecting and autonomous citizenship that is enjoyed by the citizens of the rest of humanity. The seven decades of cruelly forcible displacement of Palestinians from their own homes, neighbourhoods, and livelihoods in their country of origin, Palestine, is no more than a barbaric process of ‘apartheid’ previously practiced in colonial South Africa which was subsequently condemned by the whole international community and finally eradicated. The continuation of displacement of Palestinians and their replacement with Israeli Jews on their former living areas corresponds to the practice of state sponsored genocide.

The Committee calls on all Sri Lankans and the whole world community to actively condemn and resist the continuation of such barbarities that are a dark stain on global civilisation. Given its sustained violation of international laws of all kinds and specific UN resolutions, Israel has become a virtual criminal state that needs drastic reform and correction by collective action by the world community.