During an appearance on the program Frente a Frente, of the Salvadoran Television Corporation, the diplomat explained that the conflict has been going on for 75 years with the occupation of a large part of his country.

Although he does not share the Hamas movement’s way of fighting, he considered that this new escalation is the result of the historical Zionist occupation, which worsened 16 years ago and keeps them encircled in the Gaza Strip, described as “the largest prison in the world”.

We have been warning for years, not months, years, that this was coming, that the situation is unsustainable, especially in the Gaza Strip, a territory of 365 square kilometers, where more than 2,200,000 people live, he said.

Hamas is a consequence of this occupation, and like the rest of the Palestinean organizations, militias and political parties, are a consequence of the occupation, however, this group does not represent all Palestinians, only a part of them, he said.

He clarified that “I am not defending Hamas, I am defending my people who have been under occupation for 75 years”. Burini advocated that the international community should put Tel Aviv in its place and force it to respect the decision to create two states in occupied Palestine under the norms of international law.

When asked by the interviewer, Burini pointed out that he is “the ambassador of Palestine, I am not the ambassador, nor the spokesman of Hamas here in El Salvador, with great pride”.

We are a people, he remarked, that is under occupation, under colonization, what do we have to do? We have carried out, we have carried out the armed struggle for many years and we have been negotiating, also, with Israel for many years. In return for our willingness for a peaceful solution what have we found, he asked. We have got more settlements, more expansion on the part of the State of Israel, less rights, less property, less land for the Palestinians and less rights in the end.

So what is expected of the victim, what is expected of the one who is under occupation? That is the question we ask. I understand what is happening, but I don’t justify it, he said.

Burini added that in the face of the failures provoked by Israel his people are obliged to resist, to struggle, perseverance in asking for our rights, that is what we are doing, he said.

Let’s not focus on Saturday, October 7, let’s focus on these 75 years of occupation, which is the Gordian knot of the crisis, he said.

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