‘The government needs to speak up’ on Palestine, says former Labour minister

Former Foreign Minister Evarist has urged the government to “speak up” on the plight of the Palestinian people, charging the US and Israel with “destroying everything in Gaza that made it habitable”.

Speaking at a demonstration outside Castille on Monday evening, Bartolo emphasised that Malta’s absence of foreign military bases meant the country was “not stained with the blood of over 77,000 Palestinian people”.

He said foreign military bases in Malta could have been used in the "genocide of the Palestinian people" and the military operations in Iran, calling such bases "lightning rods, not security umbrellas".

“The only two-state solution that Israel believes in is Israel and Greater Israel”, said the former minister. “The Government needs to speak up”.

Bartolo was addressing a crowd of protestors outside Castille on Monday evening, who gathered to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Palestine’s Land Day, when six unarmed Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and 100 injured while protesting the confiscation of land.

Protestors held up Palestinian flags and a banner reading “Stop Zionist terror”, while chanting slogans including “No to occupations, wars and imperialism” and “Yes to freedom”.

The event was organised by Palestinian rights activist group Ġustizzja għall-Palestina.

Palestinian ambassador Fadi Hanania said Palestine Land Day “reminds us that the theft of our land is the problem at the heart of all Israel's wars. If this problem is resolved, then the suffering of all people in the region will end”.

The demonstration also featured the appearance of children who had been injured in Gaza since Israel’s 2023 offensive, and who came to Malta to receive medical treatment.

Demonstrators want to see an end to Israeli military operations against Palestinians. Photo: Ġustizzja għall-Palestina.

Palestinian national Dania Haddad drew comparisons between the 1976 deaths of protesting Palestinians and the six Maltese killed by British forces during the 1919 Sette Giugno protest.

Lebanese national Joanna Jebaili attacked Israel’s assertions of being a democratic state, recounting how in 1996, at the age of six, she and her family had been forced to leave their home in the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre to escape an Israeli bombing campaign.

Activist Sammy Meilaq, referring to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s resistance to the formation of a Palestinian state, said, “Imperialism always expands at the cost of the masses”.

“Using violence, falsifications and terror, the US, UK, Israeli narrative is that they bring peace, but this is the peace of bayonets — like the ones that killed our Maltese resistors on 7th June 1919”, he said.

Calling on the prime minister to disavow any suggestion of Malta forming part of NATO or European military alliances, he said: “Until we are sure our freedom from military alliances is guaranteed, we shall go and speak in every square”.

Fellow activist Yana Mintoff called on the prime minister to uphold human rights through a thorough investigation of Malta's trade and relations with Israel.

She called on the government to carry out a thorough risk assessment of the Malta-flagged cargo vessel Valor, which she said was carrying steel rods to Israeli defence contractor Elbit Systems Ltd.