GAZA CITY (Dispatches) – Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has decried a decision by the African Union (AU) to grant the Zionist regime an observer status at the pan-African bloc, describing the move as ‘shocking and reprehensible.’
The decision gives the occupying regime more opportunities to continue its plans to erase Palestinian rights and to continue its brutal crimes against the Palestinian people, Hamas said in a statement.
It called on African states which “still suffer from the yoke of colonialism and racism” to “expel” the Zionist regime from the AU and to slap it with sanctions “until it acquiesces in truth and justice.”
The occupying regime announced on Thursday that it has attained observer status at the AU after nearly two decades of ‘diplomatic efforts’.
Making the move ‘official’, Zionist ambassador to Ethiopia, Burundi and Chad Aleli Admasu presented his credentials to Moussa Faki Mahamat, the chairman of the African Union Commission, at the bloc’s headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.
Hamas said African countries have long been backing Palestine’s just struggle for freedom and independence, adding Palestinians look forward to seeing their support continue.
“Accordingly, we demand the immediate expulsion of the occupying regime from the African Union, and the imposition of deterrent measures against it,” it said.
“The regime must embrace truth and justice, and respond to our aspirations for the establishment of an independent State of Palestine with Al-Quds as its capital, and Palestinian refugees’ right to return to the places they and their families were forcibly evicted from.”