Basim Naim, former Palestinian health minister and a Hamas politburo member speaking to Rudaw on May 29, 2024. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Basim Naim, former Palestinian health minister and a Hamas politburo member, said on Wednesday that he was unaware of Palestinian funds being spent on building settlements in the Kurdish city of Afrin in Syria, stating that Palestinians cannot build their homes at the expense of other people.
Speaking to Rudaw’s Sangar Abdulrahman from Doha, Naim said that he was unaware of claims by a Kurdish doctor who served in Gaza, that funds collected by Gazans were being used to build Palestinian settlements in Afrin
“We cannot build our rights, our homes, and our freedom at the expense of any other human. We cannot accept the construction of our homes and residents at the expense of other people,” Naim said.
During a Rudaw news bulletin on Tuesday, Dr Baxtiyar Baram, a Kurdish doctor who traveled to Gaza from April 28 to May 22 with the Norwegian NORWAC Association, stated that Hamas and Gazans “hate Kurds” and that his Kurdish name was a problem for him during his stay at the Strip.
“The Palestinians recognize that the Kurds have done great favors to Palestine and its people … We consider the role of the Kurdish people in defending Palestine, not as a secondary, marginal or political, but the Kurdish role is an authentic, historic and permanent role,” Naim said, denying Baram’s claims.
“We are indebted to the Kurdish people for all the sacrifices they have given throughout centuries for Palestine, and for the freedom and the dignity of the Palestinian people,” he added.
Violence has been raging in the Gaza Strip for over half a year since Palestinian Hamas militants launched an all-out incursion into southern Israel on October 7, killing over 1,170 people, according to official Israeli figures.
The Hamas assault prompted a brutal response from Israel, who launched a retaliatory offensive into Gaza, killing at least 35,700 people, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Israel accuses Hamas leaders of hiding in hospitals and using civilians as a human shield against the Israeli campaign, a claim that was reiterated by Dr Baram during his stay in the Gaza Strip.
Dr. Baram said he is an eyewitness to Hamas leaders take shelters at hospitals and he has personally spoken with one of the founders of the group inside one of the hospitals.
"Hamas, as a political and military organization, needed to exploit everywhere to shelter them in their strategic positions... I have seen it with my eyes that the hospitals have been used for hiding Hamas leaders," Baram said. "Yes, yes, we saw them and even spoke with them, including one of the founders of Hamas, Mr. Munir Albursh."
Naim did not reject Baram’s claim of Albursh being at the hospital at the time. Still, he elaborated that Albursh was the director general of the health ministry and it is a wartime practice that the health ministry officials move into the hospitals to be present on the field.
“When I was a [health] minister, during wartime the ministry administration is moved into the hospitals in order to be able to perform on-field and administrative work for these emergency operations,” Naim said, stating that Baram was not “informed about the nature of fieldwork” during the war.
Naim thanked the doctor “who risked his life, and was adamant to join a European medical team under the banner of the Norwegian NORWAC, to help and aid our wounded Palestinian people.”
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