President Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday that Israel is waging a war against the Palestinian presence in Gaza, on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the “Palestinian Declaration of Independence.”

Abbas said, “The unjust aggressive war to which we are exposed is a war against the Palestinian existence, the Palestinian national identity, the identity of the land, and the identity of man,” considering it an episode in a series of aggression that has continued for more than a century.

He added: “Our first priorities now, which we are working on with all our energy, are to stop the barbaric aggression against our people, and to protect this people from further bloodshed. A drop of blood from a Palestinian child, or from a woman or a man from among our people, is more precious to us than the world and everything in it. We want a safe, dignified, free life for our people in their homeland and in their free, independent, fully sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital. This is our strategy, and this is our goal, and we will continue to fight for it until it is achieved, God willing.”

The President continued: “We have rejected with all force, and we will always reject, all plans to displace and deport our people from their homeland. These diabolical plans are not hidden from us. Rather, they have become exposed and shamelessly spoken by some leaders of the occupation, but we have always thwarted them, and we will continue to confront them with full force.”  

He added: “For this reason, we are working and will continue to work to secure all the components of the steadfastness of our people, especially in the Gaza Strip now, the Gaza Strip, which was and will remain forever an integral part of the land of the State of Palestine, and it is an integral part of our national responsibilities that cannot be We must abandon it, and therefore we categorically refuse to talk about the Gaza Strip in isolation from the West Bank, including Jerusalem. The future of the Gaza Strip is the future of the West Bank, including Jerusalem, just as the present of the Gaza Strip is the same as the present of the West Bank, including Jerusalem.”

Abbas continued: “The Declaration of Independence, which we commemorate today, was a Palestinian national decision with which the Palestine Liberation Organization culminated decades of national struggle in order to protect the Palestinian national existence and establish the Palestinian identity and character of our people and our cause... our people who decided, through their struggle and sacrifices, that the Palestine Liberation Organization would be Its only legitimate representative, the bearer of its national standard, and the guardian of the dream of independence, return, and statehood. Our people, and we with them and in them, will remain this steadfast, armed with the independent national decision, until all the hopes and national aspirations of our people are fulfilled, by embodying the Declaration of Independence as a national and political reality on the land of Palestine, and that will be "Sooner than later, God willing."

President Abbas concluded his speech by saying: “We have long told the world, and we will always confirm that, that a just and comprehensive peace cannot be achieved through occupation, aggression, or military and security solutions, but rather through recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with the resolutions of international legitimacy, and the return of refugees, and the world today has become more aware and more convinced of this, and we will not stop the national struggle until we achieve our freedom, independence, and state... and the occupation will inevitably end.”