On the occasion of the new year, Palestinian foreign minister Dr Riad Al Maliki has said that the “wounds of our people are bleeding due to Israeli war machine’s persistence in the war of genocide, destruction and displacement” in Gaza.

In a statement posted on X, the ministry quoted him as saying that “killings, destruction, displacement, starvation, the spread of epidemics, invasions, arrests and torture, all of which are crimes of ethnic cleansing, [were] dominating the daily lives of Palestinian citizens”.

He expressed hope for 2024 to be the “year when the Palestinian people obtain their fair and legitimate national rights to return [and] self-determination, and the embodiment of the Palestinian state on the ground with East Jerusalem as its capital”.