Amb Khattab hails Egypt’s $500 mln for Gaza reconstruction

Former Minister of Family and Population Ambassador Moushira Khattab stressed Egypt’s pivotal role in backing the Palestinian cause

Former Minister of Family and Population Ambassador Moushira Khattab stressed Egypt’s pivotal role in backing the Palestinian cause. She shed light in that respect on the tripartite summit held in Paris between President Abdel Fattah e-Sisi, French President Emmanuel Macron and King Abdullah of Jordan on the situation in Palestine and the Israeli atrocities.

Over the phone to (Cairo Local Time), she evaluated President Sisi’s decision to allocate 500 million dollars in the reconstruction process of Gaza during its humanitarian crisis due to the Israeli air strikes. She also hailed his orders to open the crossing for the sick to be treated in Egypt’s hospitals. The National Academy for Training has offered scholarships for Palestinians which reflects true solidarity with the Palestinian people, she reassured.

Khattab criticized those countries acting with hypocrisy, calling for respect for human rights while there is utter violation of those rights towards the Palestinian children as Israeli troops are killing them and nobody is lifting a finger: neither the Human Rights Council in Geneva, nor the Security Council, nor the European Parliament, nobody has reacted. This is double standardization.

Khattab underscored Egypt’s role as a decision maker and an influential country in the region. Egypt can push for further concrete actions to be taken to support those children who are in dire need for everything. First we need to flag international Human Rights Law and the responsibility of Israel, the occupying power, to respect international human rights law with no exception.

According to her part, she called on the international community to take action and push to stop the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people. Gaza has been under siege for 14 years now and this is collective punishment for the people of Gaza not for the government, so it is time to end impunity for the crimes taking place in the occupied territories, she highlighted. All human rights organizations together with the so-called democratic countries must demonstrate that human rights are a right for every person, she reiterated.

She insisted that now is the due time for international accountability of Israel for violating international law on two levels: the political and the military one. The UN has to bear its responsibility, she said, to provide immediate shelter and assistance for civilians in the occupied territories. She calls for stopping building settlements as this is utter violence to evict peaceful people from their homes for the sake of settlers. Time of colonial policies is over, the ambassador added, emphasizing that we have to insist on abiding by international humanitarian law and UN conventions of human rights.

(Cairo Local Time) is aired from Saturday to Thursday. This episode is presented by Yasmeen Bakir.