Israel responsible for atrocities against Palestine; Hamas' cruelty cannot be justified either, clarifies KK Shailaja

Thiruvananthapuram: CPM central committee member and MLA K K Shailaja has come out with a clarification regarding her Facebook post on the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, in which she referred to the Palestinian militant group as 'terrorists'.

She said her post had stated that Israel and the imperialist powers that help them have been the perpetrators of the atrocities faced by the Palestinian people since 1948. Her remark about Hamas came after the CPM took a pro-Palestine stand in the war.

"The left has always expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people and criticised Israel's illegal occupation of their homeland. However, the brutality inflicted on prisoners of war and civilians by Hamas cannot be justified. The post also stated that Israel has been subjecting the people of Palestine to the same cruelty for years now," clarified Shailaja.

She further wrote that wars prey on the innocent. "If the United Nations does not intervene to end the ground war that Israel has just declared, we will have to witness greater horrors than what we've already seen," said Shailja, adding that women and orphaned children are always the victims of any war or communal riot.

Earlier, MLA K T Jaleel had criticised Shailaja's post mentioning the Hamas remark. He wrote on Facebook that if Hamas are 'terrorists', then Israel are 'extreme terrorists'. He also said Israel was showing the same brutality to Palestine that Hitler did to the Jews.