Text: Husam Zomlot at 30th National March for Gaza

Husam Zomlot in Whitehall. Screenshot

Husam Zomlot, Palestinian Ambassador, delivered the following address in Whitehall on Saturday at the 30th National Demonstration for Gaza in London.

Friends, today marks a day of shame. Today is the 700th day of genocide: 700 days that the world has failed to end the slaughter of children, the mass murder of women, men executed in cold blood.

My friends, I have just returned from the homeland, from the West Bank. Israel's campaign of erasure there is just as flagrant.

In Gaza, the erasure is executed through bombs, imposed famine, total destruction and mass displacement.

In the West Bank, it is through walls, checkpoints, settler terrorism armed by the state - the terrorist state of Israel.

The entire Gaza strip has been reduced to concentration camps. Children are starved to death.

Their killers must face the full force of the law. The killers of the thousands of innocent children are the real terrorists. Israel is a terrorist state.

All of you here are fighting against terrorism.

My friends, what is happening in Palestine is not only a man-made act of evil, it is the test of our time: a test of whether the term humanity has any meaning at all - and a test of our resolve, a test of our belief, a test of our determination.

And I tell you the same determination that has made governments feel the pressure to do something: that determination is your determination.

After 700 days, you still come out every day, every week in your hundreds and thousands.

The people have spoken loud and clear.

Because of your pressure, because of your presence, because of your voice, governments have started taking some actions but it is not enough, nowhere near enough. We cannot stop until there are full sanctions on the genocidal state of Israel and a full arms embargo now, and until the occupation ends and the state of Palestine is established with clear sovereign borders with Jerusalem as its eternal capital and until we have the rights of our refugees - ethnically cleansed in 1948 - respected, implemented and redressed.

My friends, we must never, never allow genocide to be normalised.

Every single enabler and supporter of this genocide must answer for their complicity, for their criminality. This is your mission. This is my mission.

I promise you, we will prevail. Let me tell you this my friends: the Palestinian people see you. They hear you.

I bring to all of you here in your hundreds of thousands a message of love from Palestine.

Palestine has become because of you a symbol not only of our freedom but your freedom and the freedom of the whole World.

Let me tell you something. Palestine may not be free but the people of Palestine are free because freedom is to refuse surrender, is to refuse submission.

I promise you we will not give up.

We will not give up our own freedom. We will not give up your freedom.

Because this is not only about the sanctity of Palestinian life it is about the sanctity of life everywhere.

It is about our children and your children. It is about our future and your future.

We cannot stop. We cannot fail. Let this be written in History: that after 700 days of genocide, while governments turn away, the Palestinian people stood in defiance and the people of the UK and the World marched and said, 'Not in our name.'

We will march together. We will work together. We will struggle together until the genocide ends; until walls fall; until apartheid ends - and until there is a free Palestine.