Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley has spoken on the ongoing Gaza conflict which has claimed thousands of lives in Israel and Palestine.
In the past, government has issued a written statement, but on this occasion the Prime Minister is standing on the inability to condone this level of conflict, violence and mass destruction of cities, homes and facilities taking several innocent lives.
Speaking during a press conference held at the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) on Saturday, November 18, 2023, where she informed citizens of a newly forged partnership between CARICOM and Saudi Arabia, the Prime Minister said it was impossible to speak to the nation without addressing this issue.
“I would like to speak on another matter. I wouldn’t know how to speak today without addressing it. What is going on in the Gaza is a travesty and it offends every human sensibility.”
“We were offended for sure on October 7, when persons were killed in Israel in acts that were utter terror but what has happened since then is dwarfing that in terms of the scale…I don’t even think that horror and terror is sufficient to describe it because separate from the bombs, the notion that people [in Palestine] will not have access to water or people do not have access to fuel or that babies have to lie on beds cuddling next to one another in the pictures that we’ve seen in order to keep some level of warmth, these things are not good.”
Mottley who professed that this was perhaps the first televised genocide, said it was also important for people on both sides to express their opinion.
“It is perhaps the first televised genocide and hence the world is responding.
“In our own country this weekend we have a march and it is right and fitting that people on all sides should be able to express their opinion but it is equally right that civilized nations must be able to hold people to activities that fall outside of the pale.”
“There are certain things that we should not allow any country, any state to engage in. If you want to fight, fight. But don’t have young children, old people and honest civilians become victims of a battle in a way that simply finding a humanitarian cease fire could have removed from them the threat of loss of life. Simply finding the mechanism to be able to pause because as I said three weeks ago and I mean it, peace will come.”
She asked:
“How many more must pay the ultimate price before peace is secured?”
Not dismissing other conflicts currently happening across the world, Mottley also asked Barbadians to pray that both sides seek the courage to build peace.
“I ask our people to pray for both sides and to pray that they will find in them the courage to build peace that the world needs. And this is not to say that their battle has any more value than what is going on in Darfur, Sudan and other parts of the world, but this one regretably has been constant in people’s living rooms, bedrooms and dining rooms because it is being televised.”
