Interview: India should play mediator and call for a ceasefire, appeals Palestinian envoy

Forty one days into Israel’s attack on the Gaza Strip has seen the Israeli Defence Forces inflict immense damage on Palestinian civilians. The death toll, according to the Gaza health ministry, now stands at 14,000, meaning a staggering one out of 200 people in Gaza have died.

Scroll spoke to the Palestinian ambassador to India, Adnan Abu Alhaijaa, at the Palestinian Embassy in Delhi to understand the scale of the destruction as well as the part he wanted India to play.

The ambassador highlighted India’s historic role as a friend of Palestine. He also urged the Indian government to be a mediator between Israel and Palestine and put pressure on the Israeli government to declare a ceasefire.

What is a situation in Gaza right now after the IDF’s ground invasion?
I think the whole world is following the situation in Gaza after 41 days. The situation is very bad. And you can imagine 2.2 million people without water, without food, without electricity, without fuel. In the hospitals they don’t have oxygen now, because there is no electricity. We are expecting our hospitals to collapse. We have 35 hospitals in the Gaza Strip. Yesterday already 20 of those have stopped working. The rest might also collapse within 40 hours because...

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