Israel is offering us 'genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid' — Palestine

Israeli leaders are offering genocide and ethnic cleansing to Palestinian people, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al Maliki has said at a UN Security Council meeting on Gaza, amid Israel's brutal war in Gaza that has so far killed more than 25,000 Palestinians, mostly children and women.

Al Maliki said on Tuesday Israel had denied Palestinians existence, rights and humanity — whether in besieged Gaza, the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, or Palestinian refugees or Palestinian prisoners.

"They do not see our people as an empirical and political reality to exist with, but as a demographic threat to get rid of through this displacement or subjugation," he said at a UN Security Council meeting on Gaza.

"These are the choices they offer us: genocide, ethnic cleansing or apartheid. I know some here are uncomfortable with these words, but they are the reality that we live under," said al Maliki.

He said there are only two paths ahead for the conflict between Palestine and Israel arising from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land since 1948.

"One that starts with Palestinian freedom and leads to shared peace and security in our region, or one that continues denying this freedom and dooms our region to further bloodshed and endless conflict," he said.

Palestine says no third path for Israel

The foreign minister also took aim at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Netanyahu boasts publicly and repeatedly that he played the key role in preventing the independence of the Palestinian state and peace in our region and pledges to continue doing so," he said.

"Israel should no longer entertain the illusion that there is somehow a third path whereby it can choose [to] continue to occupation and colonialism and apartheid, and somehow still achieve regional peace and security. This is not a viable path, nor illegitimate," he added.

Israel has killed 25,490 Palestinians so far and wounded 63,354 others in its brutal war on besieged Gaza since October 7 Hamas blitz. The Israeli death toll in the Hamas raid stands at around 1,140, which was revised from 1,400. More than 90 percent of Palestinians have been uprooted by Israeli invasion and the United Nations says more than half a million people in Gaza — a quarter of the population — are starving.

Hamas says its Operation Al Aqsa Flood on October 7 — a multi-pronged surprise raid that included a barrage of rocket launches and infiltrations into Israel by land, sea and air — was in retaliation for the storming of the Al Aqsa Mosque, growing violence by illegal Israeli settlers, and consistent raids on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Before the start of the fight, 2023 was considered the deadliest year for Palestinians that didn't involve major clashes between the two sides.

Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant says the fighting will continue until Hamas resistance group is crushed, and argue that only military action can win the release of some 130 captives held in Gaza by Palestinian fighters.

But commentators and analysts have begun to question whether Netanyahu's objectives are realistic, given the war entering its 110th day, Palestinian fighters giving tough resistance to invading forces and growing international criticism, including genocide accusations against Tel Aviv at the United Nations World Court.