President Vo Van Thuong affirmed that the Vietnamese State and people strongly support and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their just struggle.
President Vo Van Thuong sent a message to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Chairman of the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People Cheikh Niang, and President of the State of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on November 29, according to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The President expressed Vietnam’s readiness to join the international community’s joint efforts to promote dialogue and provide humanitarian assistance to people in conflict areas, contributing to ensuring peace, security and stability in the region and the world. President Vo Van Thuong stressed that the Vietnamese State and people strongly support and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their just struggle.
On the same day, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh announced that Vietnam will contribute 500,000 USD through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to provide emergency humanitarian relief to Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
President Vo Van Thuong in Hanoi in April. Photo: VNA
The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People has been commemorated by the United Nations on November 29 every year since 1978. November 29 is significant for the Palestinian people, as it was on this day in 1947 that the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Partition Plan for Palestine (Resolution 181) supporting the establishment of an Arab state and a Jewish state in historic Palestine.
The commemoration took place in the context of the conflict between Israel and the Hamas group that has not ended, although the two sides have reached a temporary ceasefire agreement and a hostage exchange.
"Palestinians in Gaza are suffering a humanitarian catastrophe," Secretary-General Guterres said in a message marking the anniversary. "Nearly 1.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes, but nowhere is safe for them. The situation in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, risks erupting into fighting."
The 1948 displacement of Palestinians from the land that became the state of Israel is the subject of an ongoing exhibition at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
The plight of Palestinian refugees remains the world's longest-running unresolved refugee crisis, said Philippe Lazzarini, head of UNRWA.
UNRWA supports some 5 million Palestine refugees across the Middle East, providing education, health care and social protection among other services.
“In Gaza, we are determined not only to stay but also to scale up our operations to meet the huge needs of the community,” Lazzarini said, noting that more than a million people are staying in overcrowded shelters and stressing the urgent need for “a real political solution that meets the legitimate aspirations of Palestinian refugees.”
Devastation in the Gaza Strip on October 10. Photo: WHO
UN General Assembly President Dennis Francis expressed sorrow "for the lives lost over the past seven weeks and seven decades".
"Like all human beings, Palestinians enjoy the fundamental and inalienable right to live with respected values, to enjoy all freedoms, such as freedom of movement, freedom from fear or want and access to basic services," he said.
Mr. Francis also called on the international community to "use its power to promote compromise, direct dialogue, trust and good faith negotiations in the Middle East."
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