Passionate wave of Palestine flags characterises Day of Solidarity in Ghana

A passionate wave of Palestinian flags by Ghanaians at the State of Palestine’s Embassy in Accra marked the International Day of Solidarity with the People of Palestine.

The protesters, including women and children, gathered at the Embassy with fervent voices, echoing demands for justice for the people of Gaza.

This comes in the wake of bombardment by Israel, following its military offensive against Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 attack.

The United Nations (UN) estimates that more than 13,000 people – 40 per cent of them children, and 101 UN staff – have been killed in the last seven weeks of hostilities in Gaza.

Almost 1.7 million people have been forced from their homes, while Reuters reports that many more Palestinians are feared dead and lost under rubble.

At the Palestinian Embassy in Accra, the vibrant colours of the country’s flags, with a tricolour of three equal horizontal stripes overlaid by a red triangle issuing from the hoist, was prominent throughout the commemoration.

The flags, waved in a fanatic fashion by women and students, were a symbol of the collective call for justice and total ceasefire in Gaza, Palestine.

Wahban, an eight-year-old Pakistani, who joined the protesters with a placard that read “Ceasefire”, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that: “The Genocide must Stop”.

“It is sad that children of my age are being killed.”

Like Wahban, the hundreds who converged en masse intermittently chanted, “Free free Palestine, from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – a nationalistic slogan commonly featured in anti-Israel campaigns and demonstrations.

Mr Charles Abani, UN Resident Coordinator, said, “The UN Secretary-General urges all States to use their influence to end the tragic conflict and support irreversible steps towards the only sustainable future for the region: a two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side, in peace and security”

Mr Abdalfatah Ahmed Khalil Alsatarri, the State of Palestine Ambassador to Ghana, noted that the conflict between Israel and Hamas was not religious – between Muslims and Christians.

He said, “In Palestine, Muslims and Christians live together. We work together. We struggle together. We are happy together and we cry together. So, this conflict has nothing to do with Muslims and Christians”.

The Ambassador said, to bring an end to the conflict, “Israelis must leave our land they have occupied since 1967. If they want peace in the Middle East, then they should leave our lands. My people want to live in peace”.

“My people are looking for peace, freedom, hope and love…this occupation will go one day, and Palestine will be safe…”

Professor Atta Britwum, a former Professor of French at the University of Cape Coast, who joined the commemoration, told the GNA that the struggles of the Palestinian people did not start only recently as “they have been subjected to aggression for over 70 years.”

That, he said, could not go on forever as the world was “rising up against the genocide that is taking place in Gaza”.

He said, “I am totally against it. I am against injustice. I am angry about what happened to the Jews during the Second World War. I don’t want that to be repeated against the Palestinians. It is totally unjustifiable what is happening”.

“We won’t allow that. “Prof Britwum, also a former Board Member of the Ghana News Agency, deplored.

Sheikh Aremeyaw Shaibu, Spokesperson for the National Chief Imam, who joined the diplomatic corps in solidarity with Palestine, said the “brutish display of military power by Israel is without any sense of humanity and any clemency worthy of the respect of any human being on the earth”.

He said to take away the freedom of any person or community was to deny them of their humanity and that the killing of women and children in Gaza was “regrettable”.

Sheikh Shaibu said, “It is our duty that we are bold and restrain the hands of the wicked in the world. The hands of the unjust must be held and restrained from visiting this kind of atrocities being witnessed today against a section of society…We stand in unflinching solidarity with Palestine.”.

Mr Kwesi Pratt Jnr, General Secretary of the Socialist Movement, Ghana, who reaffirmed his solidarity with the people of Palestine, intimated that “If the problem is occupation, then the occupier cannot be guilty of any crime. The Palestinian resistance did not start the occupation. The Palestinian resistance is not responsible for the Genocide being committed in Palestine”.

He said, “The killing must stop! What we need is not a ceasefire. What we need is an end to the occupation. If it ends today, nobody will fire a weapon…All of us have a special responsibility to bring this occupation to an end”.