74,000 martyrs including more than 21,000 children, and over 35,000 women killed or injured since October 2023

Arab League commemorates victims of genocide in Gaza with live testimonies and documentation exhibition

- 74,000 martyrs including more than 21,000 children, and over 35,000 women killed or injured since October 2023

Amr Yehia

The General Secretariat of the League of Arab States, in cooperation with the Permanent Delegation of Palestine to the Arab League, organized an event to commemorate the victims of the genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people, particularly in the Gaza Strip.

The event was attended by Arab officials and featured live testimonies from Palestinians who endured the horrors of the war, alongside a documentary exhibition displaying photos, evidence and testimonies from inside the Strip documenting the impact of the war and destruction.

Arab League Secretary-General Dr. Nabil Fahmy said in his address, delivered on his behalf by Assistant Secretary-General and Head of the Palestine and Occupied Arab Territories Sector Ambassador Fayed Mustafa, that the meeting is held to commemorate the genocide to which the Palestinian people in Gaza are being subjected.

"We stand before a tragedy that has exceeded the limits of human endurance, recalling on 17 October thousands of souls lost and hundreds of thousands injured. According to the latest Palestinian statistics, the number of martyrs has exceeded 74,000, including more than 21,000 children, and more than 35,000 women killed or injured since October 2023," he said.

He added: "When residents are deprived of water, food and medicine and safe areas shrink, pressure exceeds human endurance." He warned that these conditions could become a tool to force residents to leave their land, stressing that "displacement may be practiced by direct force or created by coercive conditions that make survival impossible, and in both cases their protection remains a legal duty. Hunger is not a means to subjugate peoples, and water is not a bargaining chip."

The Secretary-General called for ensuring unhindered entry of humanitarian aid, providing shelter, reactivating water networks and removing rubble, stressing that there is no meaning in talking about recovery while people lack the basic necessities of life.

He added: "There is a truth that must be at the forefront: while peace is presented as a horizon to end the war, Israeli forces still maintain a military presence controlling large areas of Gaza. The continuation of this presence raises serious questions about commitment to the ceasefire, which should have been an entry point to ending the war, not keeping the community hostage to danger. True security is not built by entrenching fear, but by ending the occupation and enabling Palestinians to manage their own affairs within a unified national framework."

He said: "Plans to end the war have been proposed, and we welcomed every serious effort, but the seriousness of any plan is not measured by the beauty of its wording, but by the tangible change it brings: stopping the killing, bringing in aid, and military withdrawal. The world talks about peace while the people of Gaza await its results, and talks about reconstruction while families await shelter. I look forward to the Security Council placing civilian protection at the top of its priorities and ensuring the ceasefire and withdrawal, and that reconstruction be a Palestinian-led process with Arab and international support linking reconstruction to a political track that ends the occupation."

He said: "History teaches us that policies of war, occupation and settlement may provide temporary calm, but they do not achieve security nor create a right, but rather add fuel to an already inflamed situation, and are incapable of extinguishing a people's longing for freedom. What is required from Israel is to abandon the mentality of force and recognize the rights of others. Any peace track must lead to ending the occupation and establishing an independent Palestinian state on the lines of 4 June 1967, with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital, in accordance with international legitimacy and the Arab Peace Initiative, and we will continue to mobilize support so that the victims are not forgotten and the people of Gaza are not left alone."

The Secretary-General expressed his hope that the UN Security Council and those responsible for implementing international legitimacy resolutions will place civilian protection and humanitarian needs at the forefront, work to consolidate the ceasefire, ensure military withdrawal in accordance with agreed commitments, open the way for the Palestinian National Authority to assume its role in Gaza, and provide the political, security and financial conditions necessary for reconstruction.

He affirmed that rebuilding Gaza should be a Palestinian-led, Arab and internationally supported process that responds to the actual needs of the population, preserves their rights to land and property, ensures their participation in determining their future, and links reconstruction to a clear political track ending with ending the occupation and achieving Palestinian independence.

He stressed that the international community is required today to prove its seriousness through action, not just statements, by mobilizing resources, removing obstacles, obliging parties to implement their pledges, and ensuring that Gaza does not remain suspended between a fragile ceasefire, incomplete peace plans, and reconstruction promises awaiting implementation.

The event also featured speeches by Arab Parliament Speaker Mohamed bin Ahmed Al-Yamahi and the Permanent Representative of the State of Palestine to the Arab League Ambassador Mohanad Al-Aklouk, who addressed the importance of commemorating the victims and documenting the crimes and violations committed against the Palestinian people during the war.

The event included four live testimonies from Palestinian citizens from Gaza, highlighting the humanitarian suffering endured since the outbreak of the war and the human losses, injuries and tragedies caused by Israeli military operations.

The testimonies include an account by an Al Arabiya correspondent about conditions he witnessed in Gaza, testimony by a mother of several children who was shot and still carries a bullet inside her body, in a testimony embodying the suffering endured by civilians, including women and children, during the war.

It also includes testimony by a doctor who was besieged for 60 days inside Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, recounting his experience and the conditions faced by medical staff during the siege, alongside testimony by a relative of martyrs who lost about 32 members of his family due to the war.

A documentary exhibition was also held featuring a collection of photos, evidence and testimonies from inside Gaza, documenting the effects of Israeli military operations and the scale of destruction in the Strip, and documenting part of the suffering of civilians and human and material losses, contributing to preserving the national and human memory of the war and its victims.

According to figures cited by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, the number of Palestinian martyrs since the start of the war on 7 October 2023 has exceeded 74,000, while the number of injured has exceeded 175,000, amid ongoing humanitarian and health repercussions and expanding destruction that has affected homes, facilities and infrastructure.

These figures highlight the scale of human losses incurred by Palestinians during the war, at a time when the Strip faces extensive humanitarian and medical needs as a result of injuries and destruction of hospitals, health facilities and basic necessities of life.

This painful occasion is being commemorated for the first time, in implementation of the Arab League Ministerial Council decision in its regular 166th session in September 2026 to adopt 17 October of each year as a day to remember the victims of the genocide committed by the Israeli occupation authorities against the Palestinian people, where on this day in 2023, more than 700 Palestinians were martyred in less than 24 hours, including victims of the Al-Ahli Arab (Baptist) Hospital massacre in Gaza City, along with other massacres committed by Israel in the Strip.