(Privilege speech delivered by Lanao 1st district Representative Zia Alonto Adiong at the House of Representatives on 7 November 2023, on the cessation of hostilities in Palestine and Israel).
Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu!
Mr. Speaker, I rise today on a matter of collective and personal privilege to speak about terror. The terror of uncertainty, of an unending siege, of the shadow of endless conflict. To live not knowing whether there’ll be food, water or even clean air in the next hour. To live not knowing where to escape or turn to. To live not knowing whether you’d be alive in the next few minutes. That is life under siege, a life that is the reality of the citizens of Gaza for decades and which has become ever more grim since October 7th of this year.
Let us paint a haunting and tragic portrait of the humanitarian nightmare in Gaza. Imagine a sprawling enclave of 2.2 million Palestinians, where nearly half of the population are innocent children, more than a million of them. Their lives are ensnared within the suffocating grip of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), an iron-fisted regime that has imposed a ruthless stranglehold on every facet of their existence.
Gaza, a place where the sky, the land, and the sea all bear the heavy chains of an unrelenting blockade. This prison without walls, this dystopian reality, is marked by a terrifying landscape of endless checkpoints manned by the IDF. At these checkpoints, the people of Gaza are compelled to beg for permission, to plead for their meager freedom, their passports clutched in trembling hands. To move from one village to another, from one corner of their homeland to the next, they must grovel for approval, like prisoners in their own land.
And the torment does not stop there. Under the shadow of what Amnesty International chillingly dubs “The Occupation of Water,” the Israeli authorities exercise total dominion over the water resources, infrastructure, and pricing in Gaza. In this desolate realm, the average Palestinian is forced to survive on a paltry 20 to 70 liters of water each day, a pitiful ration that falls far below the United Nations’ recommended minimum of 100 liters daily. Meanwhile, just beside their parched homes, the average Israeli in Gaza revels in a staggering 300 liters of water daily, a stark contrast that serves as a bitter reminder of the stark disparities in this tale of two worlds.
In the eyes of international human rights organizations—be they from Israel, Palestine, or the United Nations—this brutal reality is unequivocally labeled an Apartheid Regime. The suffering, the injustice, the heart-wrenching disparity of life in Gaza paints a portrait of anguish, a symphony of despair, and a glaring testament to the enduring human spirit in the face of insurmountable adversity.
On October 7, 2023, this living nightmare reached a ghastly peak. Hamas fighters opened breaches into Israel’s blockade barriers and killed or abducted the residents therein. In retaliation, the Gaza strip has been bombarded and assaulted for more than a month.
The targeting of innocent civilians is terror, full stop. It is terror for concert goers to die in a hail of bullets. It is terror for innocent children to die in a bombing campaign. It is terror for civilians to be taken hostage. It is terror for civilians to be forcibly taken from their homes and imprisoned without trial. It is terror to shoot rockets indiscriminately onto civilian homes and infrastructure. It is terror to drop bombs indiscriminately onto the same. Let us not mince words, whether by the hand of an insurgent, or by the orders of a state’s military, terror is terror. And this terror must stop.
Mr. Speaker, what is happening in Gaza has been dubbed a “textbook case of genocide.” That is the expert opinion of Israeli scholar Raz Segal, associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University. And I quote:
Under international law, the crime of genocide is defined by “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,” In its murderous attack on Gaza, Israel has loudly proclaimed this intent. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant declared it in no uncertain terms on October 9th: “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly.” … This dehumanizing language is clearly calculated to justify the wide scale destruction of Palestinian lives.
The UN Genocide Convention lists five acts that fall under its definition. Israel is currently perpetrating three of these in Gaza: “1. Killing members of the group. 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The Israeli Air Force, by its own account, has so far dropped more than 6,000 bombs on Gaza, which is one of the most densely populated areas in the world…This demonstrates clearly what Gallant means by “act accordingly”: not targeting individual Hamas militants, as Israel claims, but unleashing deadly violence against Palestinians in Gaza “as such,” in the language of the UN Genocide Convention. UNQUOTE
“Human Animals”. Mga Hayop na katawang tao. In another speech Gallant said “Gaza will not return to what it was once before, we will eliminate everything”. Uubusin natin silang lahat.
Mr. Speaker, as pointed out by Professor Segal, the intent demonstrated by these and many other statements from Israeli officials, coupled with their actions of killing, causing severe harm, and imposing conditions of life intended to result in physical destruction, amounts to genocide. He is not alone in this assessment; UN Special Rapporteurs have warned that “time is running out to prevent a genocide in Gaza.” The escalating horrors have reached a critical juncture, leading to the resignation of Craig Mokhiber, Director of the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. In his resignation letter, he declared that, like the tragedies of the Tutsis, Bosnian Muslims, Yazidis, and Rohingya, we are failing to prevent a genocide of Palestinians.
Mr. Speaker, in the month since October 7, we have borne witness to countless horrors visited upon the people of Gaza. As of November 2, 2023, a heart-wrenching tally emerges – 3,600 innocent children, their lives mercilessly snuffed out in Gaza. UNICEF, their cries echoing through history, has denounced it as “a collective stain on our humanity.” More than 45 families, entire legacies, were obliterated from the census, their existence erased.
In the relentless crucible of conflict, the numbers become a haunting refrain: a staggering 9,000 souls have perished during these hostilities. Among them, a nightmarish account unfolds — over 1,400 souls lost during the gruesome acts of terror on October 7th, and a further 5,000 souls vanishing into the abyss during the ceaseless, brutal siege that chokes life out of Gaza. The devastation knows no bounds, and the weight of these numbers is a harrowing testament to the depths of human suffering.
Parents in Gaza have begun to write on the forearms of their children. So that if a bomb or the resulting debris would mangle their child’s corpse, they would be able to identify them. We must recognize that with the death of innocents in Gaza, in Israel, in the West Bank, we too are victims. It is our shared humanity ,which has helped us endure so much, that is mangled alongside the bodies of children.
Gaza remains under siege, Gaza is continuously bombarded. Each new air strike followed quickly with the refrain “there was a Hamas terrorist there”. In bakeries and fishing boats; in hospitals and ambulances; in churches and mosques; in universities and schools. There seems to be a Hamas terrorist everywhere. Fire rains down from the sky like an unforgiving storm. In the downpour it has leveled entire residential blocks. A flood of dust and debris carrying away a people’s culture, a people’s heritage, their very soul. It is a typhoon of death that takes away life and hope.
If you view these atrocities as religious or ideological. I urge you to disabuse yourself of that thought. Jews, Muslims, and Christians. Arabs and non-Arabs. Shelter side by side in those hospitals and churches. Their bodies mangled together by IDF bombs. They’re buried side by side in the rubble. Their crime? Being Palestinian.
International law vehemently condemns such heinous acts. The very essence of its principles underscores that those not actively involved in hostilities must be shielded from the horrors of violence, degradation, and inhumanity. Yet, in a macabre twist, combatants and innocent bystanders are bound together, seemingly awaiting their collective demise in an unfathomable form of punishment.
The sinister coercion to relocate, under the ominous shadow of violence and death, morphs into a nightmarish tableau of forced displacement. These grave offenses are not mere transgressions; they are brazen affronts to the very core of international law. The deliberate targeting of hospitals, ambulances, schools, churches, aid workers, and the press evokes a chilling symphony of illegality that reverberates across the global stage, a dark drama of lawlessness and inhumanity.
To this day, 134 Filipinos remain in Gaza; however, only 43 of them have indicated their intent to be repatriated. The rest are unable to leave. I emphasize that they cannot leave, as doing so would mean being forcibly separated from their Palestinian spouses and potentially even their children. As a husband and a father, I cannot fathom leaving my wife and children in the midst of a siege. Every explosion reported in the news would ignite the darkest fears in my heart. The sheer uncertainty of their well-being would be an unbearable burden to carry.
Article XV, Section 1 of our Constitution explicitly “recognizes the Filipino family as the foundation of the nation,” and as such, the State is tasked with “strengthening its solidarity.” This principle is deeply embedded in our laws and official actions, reiterated time and again through our laws and judicial decisions: “The State recognizes the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a fundamental, self-governing social institution.”
We acknowledge the efforts of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in assisting our citizens and their families. We commend their courage and resilience. We want to impress upon them that our citizens are entitled to the protection of our constitution, which holds the unity of their families as sacrosanct. Therefore, we urgently implore the DFA and all foreign embassies involved to allow our citizens and their families to return home.
Mr. Speaker, it is imperative that we align ourselves with the prevailing sentiment of the international community and demand an immediate cessation of violence. Gaza is in dire need of essential humanitarian aid, and it is our moral duty to ensure its uninterrupted flow to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people.
Yet, our responsibilities extend beyond humanitarian assistance. We must resolutely advocate for a return to the negotiation table, a renewed commitment to upholding agreements that pave the way for a just and enduring peace. This means breaking the chains of the blockade, dismantling the structures of apartheid, and heralding the birth of a fully recognized Palestinian state. It is our collective duty to stand for these principles, championing the cause of lasting peace in a region ravaged by conflict for far too long.
For all those who have perished. Ceasefire Now. For all those who remain. Ceasefire Now. For all that is good in humanity. Ceasefire Now.
Peace, mercy, and blessings upon the people of Palestine and Israel.
