Israel-Hamas war: Congress 'strongly opposed' to India's abstention on UN resolution

India's Congress leader Sonia Gandhi has "strongly opposed" India's abstention on the voting on the recent UN resolution on the Israel-Hamas conflict and said that while her party unequivocally condemned Hamas' attacks, the tragedy is compounded with the Israeli state now focused on exacting revenge from a population that is largely as helpless as it is blameless.

In an article in The Hindu published today, she also said the Congress party's known stand has been to support direct negotiations for a sovereign independent, viable and secure state of Palestine coexisting in peace with Israel.

Sonia wrote "humanity is on trial now", and called for "the loudest and most powerful voices to be for a cessation of military activity."

India abstained from voting in the UN General Assembly on a resolution that called for an immediate humanitarian truce in the Israel-Hamas conflict leading to a cessation of hostilities. The resolution also called for unhindered humanitarian access in the Gaza Strip, our New Delhi correspondent reports.

"We were collectively diminished by the brutal attacks on Israel. We are now all diminished by Israel's disproportionate and equally brutal response. How many more lives will have to be taken before our collective conscience is stirred and awakened?" Sonia said.

She said the tragedy is, however, being compounded by the Israeli military's "indiscriminate operations" in and around Gaza that have led to thousands of deaths, including large numbers of innocent children, women and men. "The power of the Israeli state is now focused on exacting revenge from a population that is largely as helpless as it is blameless."

Sonia said there can be no peace without justice. Israel's unremitting blockade for over a decade and a half has reduced Gaza to an "open-air prison" for its two million inhabitants packed into dense cities and refugee camps, she said. "In Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israeli settlers backed by the Israeli state have continued to push out Palestinians from their own land in a seeming effort to destroy the vision of a two-state solution. Peace will come only if the world, led by countries that have the ability to influence policies and events, can restart the process of restoring the two-state vision and make it a reality," Gandhi stressed.

"The Israeli government is making a grievous error in equating the actions of Hamas with the Palestinian people," Sonia said. In its determination to destroy Hamas, it has unleashed indiscriminate death and destruction against the ordinary people of Gaza, Gandhi said.

"Even if the long history of the suffering of the Palestinians is ignored, by what logic can a whole population be held responsible for the actions of a few?" she said in the article.