July 3, 2026, marks 1,000 days since October 7, 2023. Palestinian Ambassador to India Abdullah M. Abu Shawesh believes that four key questions about what happened that day and in its aftermath – why, what, who and where – remain unanswered to this day. He spoke to The Wire about the role of propaganda in suppressing and confusing certain facts, the growing international solidarity for Palestine, and the way forward.The transcript of the interview follows. It has been lightly edited for clarity.§Hello and welcome to this special interview for The Wire. I’m Jahnavi Sen, and I’m very pleased to have with me today the Palestinian Ambassador to India, Ambassador Abdullah M. Abu Shawesh. Thank you so much for joining us.Thank you so much indeed for having me today. And it’s always good to be interviewed by The Wire.Today, that’s the 3rd of July, 2026, marks 1,000 days since the 7th of October, 2023. And this morning, you have released an article where you talk about how over the last 1,000 days, there have been many questions that have been left unanswered, and some perhaps have not even been asked. So I’d like to explore some of those questions with you here today. I thank you so much indeed. Yes, after 1,000 days of October 7th, after 1,000 sunrises of that exact morning, yet there are four main questions that have yet not been asked.The very first question, of course, why? The second question is what? Third question is who? Fourth question, where?So if we can start with the why…Yes. I want just to give a large idea about that question.So that first question, why? It means what was behind October 7? What is the history? What is the root cause of the issue? The second question, what happened at that exact day? Because we already have more than one version, or a lot of propaganda, about that day. Then, who conducted that attack? Is it only Hamas? Or there is someone who was behind this? And by someone, I mean, the Israelis themselves, and the Israeli fugitive from justice, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself. And the last question is where, tackling the future.So if we start with the ‘why’, we’ve seen devastating violence against the Palestinian people over the last 1,000 days, and often it is framed as a direct response to the Hamas attacks on October 7. But what you have argued, and what many people around the world have been saying, is that there is a much larger context to this ‘why’. So if you could walk us through that history.This is the point, which I tried in my very lengthy article to tackle under the very specific word, ‘why’. Because we have had since that exact day main two schools of thought. The rational school of thought, and the Zionist school of thought.The Zionist school of thought, which is led by, of course, the Israelis and all of their supporters, and the Israeli occupation and their supporters, which is trying to say that history itself, or the whole entire globe itself, was created at that exact day, and was started at that exact day. Which means that they neglect, they are trying to turn their back on, every single issue that led to that day, to all the causes, to all the misery that the Palestinians endured before that day, and they just want us to concentrate in that day.And history not only started that day, but also ended that day. Which means that they want us to turn blind eyes to everything, or towards the war crimes and the crimes against humanity, that have been conducted throughout the last 1,000 days. This is the Zionist school of thought.The second school of thought, which is the rational school of thought, the symptom analysis school of thought – the very first one who tackled it was the United Nations Secretary General, His Excellency Antonio Guterres, in his speech before the United Nations Security Council on October 24, 2023, when he said that, “but this did not happen in a vacuum”. And he referred to October 7, to the plight of the Palestinian people, and to the misery of the Palestinian people. And my argument as one who belongs to and strongly believes in the rational school of thought, is that October 7 did not happen in a vacuum, and there is a lengthy history behind October 7.This history was started on November 2, 1917, when the British, your colonisers here in India, the British themselves, with zero footprint in our homeland, when they have no right – no legal right, no moral right – over our homeland, gifted our homeland to the European Jews. At that exact time, by issuing the despicable, notorious Balfour Declaration, the British sowed the seeds for all the evils and the misery that we are enduring. The British sowed the seeds for October 7.That exact day, since that time, and up to October 7, 106 years before October 7, the Palestinian misery was not stopped. We had been ethnically cleansed from our homeland. We had been subject to tens of terror attacks, at the hands of the British themselves, during the British mandate, and the Jewish gangs at that time.When I say terror attack, even the British themselves used to acknowledge that the attack that we had endured before 1947 and 1948 was a terror attack. And we had been expelled from our homeland. Many things happened to the Palestinian people.Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had been slaughtered and killed since that very first day of the November 2, 1917, with the issuing of the despicable Balfour Declaration, up to October 7. But unfortunately, no one even knows about it, especially the new generation. No one even gave us the chance to speak the truth or to tell the people that there is an lengthy history before October 7.So regarding the very first question, why, again, there is a lengthy history behind October 7. Unfortunately, we did not have the chance to speak about it. On Friday, October 6, for example, six Palestinians – half a dozen Palestinians – have been slaughtered and killed. Does this make it to the news on any screen? No. Since the beginning of 2023 up to October 6, 2023, more than 400 Palestinians have been killed. Does this make any news around the world at all? Absolutely none all.All what the media, the complicit media – and when I say the complicit media, I mean it, in particular the vast majority of the Western media is complicit and controlled by the Zionist movement – those media outlets did not give us the chance to speak about what happened just one day before October 7.So that this is the school of thought that I belong to, and any rational one should belong to it. So the very first question when we analyse and tackle October 7 should be why, and there is much to talk about when we tackle the issue or when we answer the question why.Coming to your second question on the ‘what’, you say that we don’t still know exactly what has happened on the 7th of October and in its aftermath. Why do you think that is, given that arguably we live in an age where information is more freely and more widely available than ever before? The propaganda also is widely spread. At that exact morning, we woke up as an international community while Hamas themselves, the attackers, released tens of videos showing how they fought against the Israeli army, the Israeli soldier, and killed him. This is a fact we cannot deny. But also by the end of that exact day, many propagandas have been spread and dominated the international discourse at the hands of the Israeli fugitive from justice, the prime minister himself, when he said loud and clear on the phone with the US president at that time Biden, saying that 40 babies had been beheaded, children had been burned in an oven before their parents, and many other sexual assaults and many other issues.Then we watch in the aftermath and a few days later, many western media outlets propagated and created films. They created it showing that the Palestinian attacker about the sexual issue and all of these stuff. So even while we did not know what happened on that day, there is a lot of propaganda and there are a lot of videos.By the end of that exact day, we know that the number that Israel declared about how many Israelis have been killed, it started at 1,600. Then it was reduced and after a while it became 1,200. Which means that after a forensic investigation – according to the Israelis, this is not our word – many of the bodies, Palestinian and Israeli, have been mixed together. It needed a lot of forensic investigation to differentiate between the bodies. So both of them, the Israeli and the Palestinian attackers, had been subject to the heavy fire. Who is the third party that killed both of them? Israel. There is evidence that Israel the Hannibal Doctrine. Hannibal Doctrine means kill everyone – Israeli, Palestinian and other.The very first reaction [from the Israeli forces] came after at least six hours. If there is an accident, and God forbid, a traffic accident, car accident, here in Delhi, where there are traffic jams all the time, it cannot take the rescue team more than 15 to 20 minutes to come. But to react to this event after five or six hours, this is a big question mark.The other issue, our telecommunication system, our electricity system, the whole entire Palestinian electricity and telecommunication system is at the hands of the Israeli occupation. They need just to push the button, to cut that communication between the attackers. But they did not do that, and they let them to communicate together freely, not only at that day but for the upcoming many days after October 7. Big question mark.The exact fence that the Palestinian attackers had broken in many places, tens of places, is the most sophisticated, secured fence in the world, according to the Israeli numbers. This is the exact fence that has a buffer zone. You cannot cross it. And if anyone to crossed it, he will be killed automatically. I’m not saying there is a need for a soldier to activate his weapon and to snipe him. He will automatically be killed. This is the exact buffer zone where in 2018, when the great march happened from Gaza to this exact fence, more than approximately 200 plus Palestinians have been killed in the buffer zone, automatically killed in the buffer zone. Thousands had been injured. But this buffer zone became completely utterly, utterly paralysed at that exact morning. All the systems became paralysed that morning. What happened that morning? We do not know.What happened one night or a few hours before? Again, our telecommunication is completely controlled. Israel has the ability to count every breath for every single Palestinian. We are fully, utterly, completely monitored by the Israeli intelligence organisations. But still they did not predict, they did not realise, that fighters are communicating with each other through the SMS. At least [they should know] there is enough traffic. You did not need to be a security expert to know that there is high traffic on the SMS and the phone calls.But yet Israel did not predict it, which means that what happened at that day, at that night, we want to know it as international community, as Israeli and as a Palestinian. Who should say that? Yet Israel did not convene or did not establish an independent investigation committee and even Israeli investigation committee to investigate what happened on October 7. Who is going to tell us what happened on October 7? We will not trust, and you should not trust, the Israelis. There should be an independent enquiry commission – a UN independent enquiry commission – to come to investigate what happened before October 7, on October 7 and after October 7. And anyone conducting war, war crimes, crimes against the humanity should be held accountable.And I think what you’ve been saying links quite closely into the third question, of responsibility. Who was responsible for what had happened? What parts of that question do you think still need to be answered? And do you think an independent enquiry of the kind you’re mentioning is the way to do that? The issue is who conducted it or who did what on October 7.If you want to follow the Zionist school of thought, they want us to be naive and to say just Hamas, which is true. Hamas and the Palestinian fighters took the guns. But is this the end of the game? Who paved the way for them? Who’s strengthening them? Who’s establishing them? Who financed them? It’s the Israeli fugitive from justice, the Israeli prime minister himself.Before we talk about October 7, the one who created Hamas is Israel. I’m not revealing a secret. Just ask who created Al-Mujamma’ al-Islam, that which became later on Hamas. It’s Israel, mid-1970, after the international community, of course, and India realised and acknowledged the PLO, Palestine Liberation Organisation, as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The Israelis have no excuse not to sit and to negotiate the peace process with the Palestinians, because now there is a Palestinian organisation, so they create another body to compete and to say, no, there is no one representative of the Palestinian. [So they created] Al-Mujamma’ al-Islam, which became later on Hamas. They are the ones who created Hamas.They are the one who strengthened Hamas, even after they became the de facto ruler of Gaza. The one who, in particular, used to, loud and clear, to say that anyone who wants to avoid the two-state solution, to avoid sitting on the negotiation table with the Palestinian Authority, should strengthen Hamas.Again, Netanyahu, the fugitive from international justice is the one who asked the Qatari people to provide a monthly payment in cash, is Netanyahu. The one who escorted the money, to permit the money to come to Ben Gurion Airport, the Israeli airport, to Gaza, to Hamas, directly is, again, Netanyahu himself. The one who forced us, as a Palestinian Authority, to pay the electricity bill for Gaza, by deducting it from our tax money, and while Hamas, in Gaza, collecting the money from the people there, and take it to its benefit, is, again, the Israeli prime minister, Netanyahu himself. So who did so? It’s not only Hamas, but the one who paved the way.This is exactly what Thomas Friedman, the American well-known writer, said more than one time to the current US president – if you want, you should finish the “twisted relation between Hamas and Netanyahu”. Both of them, without this political cooperation, will lose their political position. This is not my word, this is the Israeli word.So who conducted it? The third question, it’s not only Hamas. Benjamin Netanyahu is part of October 7. Up to this date, many Israelis are still accusing him of being part of October 7.Before I move to your final question, I want to ask you a little bit about where we are today. It does seem like over the last thousand days, public sentiment across the world has become much more in support of the Palestinian cause. Do you see that? Do you see hope in that shifting global sentiment? The global sentiment is already shifted towards the Palestinian question. At the very beginning, at the very first day, we should be very frank to say that we, the Palestinians, utterly, completely lost everything, and no one even showed any sympathy or mercy with the Palestinians. But after a while, after the second, third, fourth day, then the international community, the people around the world, came to realise this is not October 7th. There is a declared policy, organised policy, before and after October 7.Then the international community started realising and watching tens of thousands of videos that came from Gaza. What is the meaning of October 7? If nothing justifies October 7, then October 7 cannot justify the killing of the thousands of children. October 7 cannot justify using the starvation, and when I say starvation and famine, you, the Indian people, should remember that, 80 years ago, how many hundreds of thousands of Indians in Bengal have been died due to the famine. So, October 7 cannot justify the mass killing, the livestream massacre, the livestream genocide that you watch, and the declarations that came from the mouths of the Israeli officials, Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials, who declared that loud and clear, it’s the exact time to expel the Palestinians. This is an exact policy.It’s still there. This policy is still there. Killing the Palestinians is still there.And if you want to justify what is happening to the Gaza people because of October 7, what about the Palestinians in West Bank? Where there is no Hamas? Where there is the Palestinian Authority? How come you could justify hundreds of children who were slaughtered in the West Bank after October 7 and before October 7? So, this and the videos that came from that – like Hind Rajab, many of you heard about her, but it’s not only Hind Rajab. This is one case, how many hundreds of Hind Rajab [must exist that] we did not know about.There are so many heartbreaking videos that I watch at the very beginning when is there an amputation for the legs, for the hands of the children, and without anaesthesia. This is the issue that at least gave the opportunity for the people – these videos, targeting 260 journalists, not allowing the international media to enter even today – to see what is happening in Gaza. The international community, the young generation worldwide, started watching it. You know, the international community cannot accept October 7 at any point, but they cannot accept what happened to the Palestinian children and women after October 7. The international community became aware that this is bigger than October 7. This is a policy and this is how did the Israeli thought and think about the Palestinian people themselves.Speaking of the international community, over the last 1,000 days, have there been some solidarities and support that you have been surprised by, or on the other side, were there people you were thinking would come out in support of you and have not done so?We cannot say that there is no solidarity.The streets in London, in Australia, in America the university campuses, all came out. Yes, there is a wide sympathy and support that the Palestinians received. But also, meanwhile, unfortunately, a few weeks ago, Al Jazeera revealed in a very sophisticated and prominent investigation, that 51 countries used to and are still supporting Israel with different type of ammunition and weapons. Even though the ICJ has already issued a verdict on not to supply Israel and to stop supplying Israel. So those countries, no doubt, were part of this massacre, were part of this genocide. On top of them, of course, is the United States of America.Just a few weeks ago, you had issued a statement and held a press conference asking India to supply urgent medical aid because of the way the Palestinian healthcare system has been devastated by what has been happening. Have you heard back on that? And also, what else do you think India should be doing at this time? Thank you so much, Jahnavi, for giving me the opportunity to shed light on the collapse of the Palestinian health sector itself, not only in Gaza and also in West Bank, due to the Israeli measures, financial measures, and on the ground measures.Yes, the financial system in Palestine is in the brink of collapse. Last year since the beginning up to June, we already conducted 65,000 surgeries. This year in the same exact period, only 19,000 surgeries have been conducted. 11,000 surgeries were already postponed last year. The vast majority of life-saving medicine is completely missing from the Palestinian Ministry of Health shelves and stores. I convened a press conference two weeks ago, and I already discussed this issue with the Indian minister of foreign affairs, and I hope that very soon, there is a good reaction from the Indian government.But also, this is a good opportunity, and if you allow me to reach out to your audience and to your followers, to say that it’s the exact time for you all to reach out to the Embassy of the State of Palestine here in New Delhi, to pledge and to give some medicine that will save thousands of lives in Palestine. You, the Indian people, have a very prominent and very human slogan, which says that the world is one family. Yes, we are part of your family. And we used to say that no one is safe until everyone is safe. If it is not you, the Indian, to help the Palestinian people, then who? If it is not now, then when?And finally, to close, I would like to come to your last question that you talked about, which is, I think, something that perhaps people across the world are thinking – where do we go from here? Where should it take us? I mean, what is the lesson that we, as an international community, should learn? The very first lesson that you, the Indian people, learned a long time ago, when you said, world is one family, which means, what is affecting you there is affecting me here. Might be not directly, but indirectly.What happened in Palestine? The British sowed the seed for all this evil 109 years ago by issuing the Balfour Declaration, you, the Indian people, just two months ago, have been affected by it, when there is a shortage of the cooking gas in your kitchen. What happened in 1917 by the British issuing the Balfour Declaration and giving the establishment of the state of Palestine and all the misery and evil that we endured, led to the war with Iran. And the war with Iran led to the shortage of cooking gas that you suffer from it, as Indian people. So that world is one family. No one is safe until everyone is safe.If this is the lesson that we learned, we already digested it as an international community by October 7. And if we did not digest it, or we did not learn, we are really in a very bad position as an international community. If this is the lesson, no one is safe until everyone is safe. World is one family. Then what we could learn from October 7, and this should teach us one thing. It’s the exact time to put an end to the Israeli occupation. It’s the exact time to bring the peace to the Middle East. It’s the exact time to start abide by the international law and to enforce Israel to abide by the international law. The international community should not continue treating Israel as the state above the international law. This is a fact. Israel is a state above the international law.Even they themselves, saying that, yes, we are the chosen people. We endured the Holocaust, and the international law does not apply on us. So it’s the exact time that should we, the international community, we, the people worldwide, to say that Israel should be abide by the international law.There is an agreement, signed agreement, between the PLO, Palestine Liberation Organisation, and the government of Israel to put an end to the Israeli occupation. We accept, the Palestinians, we, the Palestinians, accept to build our state in only 22% of our historical land. And I want to stress on it. We, the Palestinians, accept to our state in only 22% of our historical land, Palestine. And when I say that, it’s a fact. I’m not revealing a secret. It’s a fact. Palestine, before 1948, was on 94% of the land. And we accept right now to build only our state in only 22%.This is the best compromise that we can give it as Palestinians. But even though what we, Palestine, India, and everyone agree on it, which is the two-state solution, is completely, utterly, loud and clear rejected by the Israeli current government, and by the Israeli officials, and even by the Israeli opposition, who is competing in the upcoming election. So that two-state solution should be the end, or at least to put an end to grant that there will not be another October 7, and not be another livestream genocide for the Palestinians, on the Palestinian people.Absolutely. I think that is something we can all hope for. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us today.