RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

With the tem­po­rary cease­fire end­ing in Gaza and re­newed fight­ing erupt­ing, British High Com­mis­sion­er to T&T Har­ri­et Cross be­lieves that Is­rael has the right to de­fend it­self but with­in the realms of in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man­i­tar­i­an law.

Cross spoke to Guardian Me­dia dur­ing a vis­it to its Port-of-Spain news­room yes­ter­day.

Asked about the UK’s po­si­tion on the Gaza war, Cross said, “We think that Is­rael has the right to de­fend it­self but with­in the realms of in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man­i­tar­i­an law, but we think that al­so a two-state so­lu­tion is the way for­ward to re­solve the con­flict in Is­rael/Pales­tine and that hu­man­i­tar­i­an law needs to be the pri­or­i­ty, par­tic­u­lar­ly at the mo­ment.”

Cross said while the UK was not in­volved in the process of re­turn­ing Trinida­di­ans to T&T when war broke out, she was hap­py that an­oth­er gov­ern­ment stepped in to help a na­tion­al re­turn home.

Last month, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne an­nounced that the min­istry, with the as­sis­tance of the gov­ern­ment of the King­dom of Nether­lands, had suc­ceed­ed in repa­tri­at­ing a T&T na­tion­al from Is­rael. This oc­curred on Oc­to­ber 16, fol­low­ing the de­te­ri­o­ra­tion of the se­cu­ri­ty sit­u­a­tion in parts of that coun­try.

On Oc­to­ber 7, 2023, the Pales­tin­ian mil­i­tant group Hamas launched at­tacks on Is­rael, killing over 1,400 peo­ple. Re­tal­ia­to­ry strikes from Is­rael have re­sult­ed in the deaths of over 3,400 peo­ple in Gaza.

Asked about the Venezuela and Guyana dis­pute over the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion, Cross de­clined to com­ment, say­ing it is a sen­si­tive is­sue at the mo­ment.

On Sun­day, the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment held a ref­er­en­dum on whether to an­nex Es­se­qui­bo, an oil-rich ter­ri­to­ry which form two-thirds of Guyana.

On Fri­day, the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice (ICJ) or­dered Venezuela not to take any ac­tion to chal­lenge, dis­rupt or in­ter­fere with Guyana’s long-stand­ing con­trol and ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Es­se­qui­bo re­gion.

It was point­ed out that since 2015, Guyana had re­frained from ne­go­ti­at­ing with Venezuela about the Es­se­qui­bo in the frame­work of the 1966 Gene­va agree­ment, which was signed by Guyana, Britain and Venezuela.