'Relief, sadness and worry': The people of Gaza 'lost everything they had'

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00:00For more, let's cross to Amman, Jordan.

00:02Mustafa Barghouti is the Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative.

00:07Thank you so much for speaking with us here on France 24.

00:12Thank you. It's my pleasure.

00:14It's been two years. What's your feeling today?

00:20Well, it's a mixture of three feelings, I would say.

00:25And the feeling of some relief that hopefully this genocidal war would stop.

00:33And a feeling of sadness because we've lost so many people,

00:40no less than 70,000 Palestinians, including 20,000 children.

00:45And a feeling of worry because we're very worried that Netanyahu could reactivate the war

00:53once he gets his captives.

00:57And I think these three feelings are exactly what almost every Palestinian feel in Palestine,

01:03whether they live in Gaza or they live in the West Bank.

01:07And that's why the feeling of relief is mixed with all these worries and the sadness of the loss.

01:16It's a huge loss, especially for the people in Gaza,

01:20because they didn't only lose their beloved and their children and their fathers and mothers and husbands and daughters.

01:30They lost their homes.

01:32They lost their facilities.

01:33They lost everything they had.

01:34I mean, when you speak about almost 92% of all homes destroyed,

01:41when you speak about total destruction and devastation of infrastructure,

01:45it's a big loss.

01:47And so there is hope.

01:49And this hope is that we will get over all of that if this war stops.

01:54And so the U.S. president saying he'll personally attend the signing ceremony in Egypt,

02:02is that a reassurance for you?

02:06What will be reassuring if he declares very clearly that he's going to provide guarantees

02:13that Israel will not reactivate its wars?

02:15And what will be really hopeful if he also says something beyond what was mentioned in his plan of 20 points

02:28about the right of the Palestinian people to be free from occupation

02:33and to have a state of their own.

02:36Since he came to power in his second term,

02:40he never mentioned the word Palestinian state.

02:42And he never spoke about the illegal settlements that are eating up the West Bank, by the way.

02:50So we need him to move forward and realize that what we are looking for is real peace,

02:57not just a ceasefire, not just stopping this war,

03:02but also a true peace that would prevent any further genocide

03:07or any further collective punishment that Palestinians are subjected to,

03:10whether in Gaza or West Bank or any act of ethnic cleansing,

03:16which we were subjected to.

03:19Mustafa Barghoudi, so many thanks for joining us here on France 24.

03:26Coming up next, special edition, the French Republic's ultimate honor

03:30bestowed on late Justice Minister Robert Beninter.

03:33His remains brought to the Pantheon, where the greats of the nation rest.

03:38That's coming up.

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