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QNA

DOHA: The participation of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in the Cairo Peace Summit scheduled to be held in the Arab Republic of Egypt on Saturday reiterates the firm stance of Qatar in supporting the Palestinian cause and keeping it at the top of the priorities of its international movement.

Since the early days of the Palestinian cause over 70 years ago, this central issue has remained a prominent concern in the hearts and minds of the people of Qatar, including the Amir, the government, and the citizens. Qatar has supported it on all international platforms, using all means and resources, making it a top priority for the state.

Qatar has dedicated political, financial, and moral support to the Palestinian people, driven by steadfast principles, ethical values, and human values. Qatar has shouldered the Palestinian cause and their legitimate aspirations, including their right to establish their state on their national land, with its capital, Jerusalem, in every international arena. Qatar has spared no effort in highlighting the justice of the Palestinian issue and the great injustice and oppression suffered by the Palestinian brothers due to the Israeli occupation, which killed them, seized their land, and displaced them across the earth.

In all the speeches of HH the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani before various local, Arab, and international forums and platforms, the Palestinian issue was prominently and forcefully placed at the top of priorities and concerns. In HH the Amir's first speech upon assuming his duties in June 2013, he reaffirmed that Qatar is committed to solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle to attain their legitimate rights, considering it a prerequisite for a just peace, which entails the Israeli withdrawal from all the Arab territories it occupied in 1967, including East Jerusalem, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, and the right of return for refugees.

In His Highness's speech at the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September of last year, HH the Amir reiterated Qatar's rejection of the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, stating, "The Palestinian people cannot remain prisoners of Israeli settlement arbitrariness, and the successive Israeli governments have rejected any fair political solution based on international legitimacy principles."

HH the Amir emphasized that the international organization's failure to take action against the occupation provided Israel with the opportunity to undermine the foundations of the two-state solution through expansion and settlement, to the point where the occupation took the form of a racist regime in the 21st century. HH the Amir renewed the commitment of Qatar to provide political, humanitarian, and developmental support to the Palestinian people, adhering to the initial position of justice in this issue, which has become a test of the credibility of world leaders towards the Middle East.

In May of last year, HH the Amir sent a message to the high-level meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, held at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

HH the Amir stated, "After seven and a half decades since the Nakba, we renew our confidence in the justice of the Palestinian cause and salute the brave resilience of the Palestinian people in their quest for all their rights. We emphasize Qatar's consistent stance on the necessity of achieving a comprehensive, just, and lasting settlement for the Palestinian issue based on international law and United Nations resolutions, ending the Israeli occupation, and achieving a two-state solution, including the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with its sovereignty, based on the 1967 borders and its capital, East Jerusalem, granting all the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, in accordance with the relevant Security Council resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative."

In his speech during the 28th Arab League Summit in Jordan in 2017, HH the Amir reiterated that "Qatar's steadfast stance on the Palestinian issue is in line with the Arab commitment to establish a comprehensive, just, and permanent peace settlement based on international legitimacy and the Arab Peace Initiative. This initiative is based on the principle of a two-state solution, ensuring the establishment of the Palestinian state along the borders of June 4, 1967, with its capital in East Jerusalem, the right of return for Palestinian refugees, and ending the Israeli occupation of all Arab territories, including the Syrian Golan Heights."

HH the Father Amir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani was the first Arab leader to visit the Gaza Strip after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 199.

During his visit, he was welcomed by the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. This visit brought hope to the people of Gaza, as it marked a new beginning and a glimpse of optimism for over 1.7 million citizens who had endured years of Israeli blockade and the devastating Israeli military operation in 2008.

This operation caused extensive destruction to both human and physical infrastructure, including homes, mosques, schools, hospitals, civil and military government facilities, and infrastructure.

As part of its national role in supporting the Palestinian cause and promoting Arab solidarity, the capital of Qatar, Doha, hosted three Arab summits. One of them was the Doha Emergency Summit held in January 2009, which was named the 'Gaza Summit'.

During this summit, Arab leaders called for suspending the Arab Peace Initiative, halting all forms of normalization with Israel, and establishing a fund for the reconstruction of Gaza.

Doha Emergency Summit, in its concluding statement, condemned Israel for its aggression on Gaza and demanded an immediate cessation of all forms of aggression and an immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. The statement also stressed the necessity of immediately and permanently opening the border crossings and allowing all humanitarian aid to enter and be distributed freely within the Strip.

Qatar's support for Al-Aqsa Mosque was strong and evident. In 2013, during the Arab Summit held in Doha, Qatar launched an initiative to create a fund named 'Support for Jerusalem'with a budget of one billion dollars.

During the Arab Economic Summit held in Kuwait in January 2009, Qatar declared its support for the Gaza Strip with a quarter-billion dollars to participate in the reconstruction of Gaza after the 2008 aggression.

In the Cairo conference that took place in October 2014, after the war initiated by Israel in the Gaza Strip that summer, Qatar pledged one billion dollars for the reconstruction of the region.

Qatar is keen to pay its annual share to support the Palestinian Authority. It also continues to provide a lot of humanitarian aid to the residents of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, through Qatari charitable societies, in addition to its contributions to supporting Palestinian educational institutions. It also received Palestinian teachers to work on its territory, and continued to support UNRWA, to enable it to fulfill its mission of relief and employment for Palestinian refugees in refugee camps.

Qatar also established a residential city to accommodate the victims of the war on Gaza, and a hospital for prosthetic limbs, as part of dozens of service projects and facilities that Qatar provides to the residents of the Strip under the supervision of Qatar's Gaza Reconstruction Committee in all medical, humanitarian, services, health, education, housing, agriculture and electricity sectors.

At the level of Palestinian reconciliation, Doha led great efforts to end the division and achieve reconciliation between the Fatah and Hamas movements. On the humanitarian level, Qatar was the first to host 15 Palestinian prisoners who were liberated as part of a prisoner exchange deal in 2011. They were among 40 prisoners whom Israel stipulated to be deported outside the Palestinian territories, out of a total of 477 who were released.

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21/10/2023
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