Shashi Tharoor on the Israel-Gaza war

Congressman Shashi Tharoor responded to the Israel-Gaza conflict as the Middle East conflict entered its second year on October 7. Tharoor said that although the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 was deeply tragic, the response was even worse.

The congressman called for a ceasefire as soon as possible and said 41,000 people had lost their lives in Gaza.

“What happened on October 7th a year ago was deeply tragic, 1200 people were killed, mostly innocent civilians, and 200 were kidnapped with hostages. But after that, the reaction was in many ways just as bad or even worse, because while Israel exercised the right to self-defense, at first, then it resulted in the deaths of 41,000 people, the Most of Gaza’s population has been displaced, the entire area has been horribly destroyed and of course “a large number of schools, hospitals, health centers, mosques and all sorts of things have been destroyed,” Tharoor said.

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Tharoor described the conflict as tragic and said that no one expected the war to last a whole year.

“It was a very tragic conflict. And I have to be fair, this time last year none of us expected that a war would last a whole year. All we can do is join the government and demand a ceasefire as soon as possible,” he added.

The congressman also said that the conflict in the Middle East is worsening with Israel’s escalation in Lebanon.

“Instead, we are now seeing the war expanding north towards Lebanon, where there have again been some successes on the Israeli side. But here too, many civilians appear to have lost their lives, and in the process of loss and a lot of concomitant devastation,” he added.