Why Palestinians in Yarmouk Are Unlucky

by Khaled Abu Toameh • April 10, 2015 at 5:00 am

For Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders, the desire to punish Israel is stronger than the will to save the lives of thousands of Palestinians being killed in Syria by the Islamic State and starved by the Syrian army, which has been besieging Yarmouk for 700 days.

Instead of devoting their energies and efforts to stop the massacres in Yarmouk, PA officials were busy preparing a new draft resolution to be submitted to the UN Security Council, establishing a timeline for ending Israeli "occupation."

The Arab foreign ministers who met in Cairo earlier this week to discuss ways of backing the new Palestinian bid, deliberately ignored that, as they were chatting and sipping coffee, Palestinians were being slaughtered and forced to flee their homes in Yarmouk.

For the PA, Jews participating in a marathon seems to be more serious and life-threatening than Islamic State terrorists beheading Palestinians and destroying Palestinian homes in Yarmouk.

"All that is left for us to do is howl, slap and cry." — Ashraf al-Ajrami, former Palestinian Authority minister.

Part of Yarmouk, near Damascus, after being damaged by fighting. (Image source: RT video screenshot)

As Palestinians were being killed and beheaded by Islamic State terrorists in the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus over the past week, Palestinian leaders once again proved that delegitimizing and isolating Israel is more important than caring about their people.

After seven days of fighting, Islamic State is now in control of nearly 90% of the camp, which once used to be home to more than 150,000 Palestinians. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) estimates that since the beginning of the civil war in Syria four years ago, the population of Yarmouk has dropped to 18,000.