The BE’s coordinator, Mariana Mortágua, today launched “a cry against war” in the Middle East as a Christmas message and called for “peace against unlimited suffering”, pledging to fight for the recognition of the Palestinian state with the next government.
In the Christmas message to which the Lusa news agency had access, her first as Bloc leader, Mariana Mortágua left out the national political crisis and the early elections and focused on the conflict in the Middle East.
“The Christmas message I leave you is therefore a cry against war, for the immediate humanitarian ceasefire that António Guterres has demanded every day, an appeal for solidarity, the Bloc’s commitment to recognizing the Palestinian state in the next government,” he says in the video.
The BE leader’s word is “peace against unlimited suffering”, stating that “this year there will be no Christmas celebrations in the city of Belém”.
“Instead of celebration there is a city of mourning, sadness and pain, under the specter of famine. In the city where Christian tradition believes Jesus was born, the worst Christmas ever will be lived in silence by so many children who are pulled out of the rubble of Gaza every day,” he laments.
Recalling that “20,000 people have already been killed in Palestine”, Mariana Mortágua also points out that hospitals have been destroyed and there is no medicine, water or food, with Gaza having “two and a half million people trapped between walls”.
“Without the support of the world’s greatest power, does anyone believe that this would be possible? The war in the Middle East, which adds to the war we already had in Ukraine after the Russian invasion, is based on a lie: that there is a military solution to the conflict in Palestine,” he criticizes.
According to the BE coordinator, what is happening “is a genocide that trivializes evil”, and the decisions of the United Nations are being violated.
“Israel signed an agreement in Oslo almost 30 years ago and has not complied with it. Settlements have been set up on territory that was promised to the West Bank,” he condemns.
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