Ramallah, January 3 (RHC)-- The Palestinian foreign minister has issued a New Year message calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli regime has been waging a genocidal war for more than two months.  The call was made through a post on the official account of the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates on X social media platform.

At the beginning of his message, Riad al-Malki welcomed the New Year and "the 59th anniversary of the start of the Palestinian revolution."  "...the wounds of our people are bleeding due to #Israeli war machine's persistence in the war of #genocide, destruction, and #displacement," Malki said.

He added: "...killings, destruction, displacement, #starvation, the spread of epidemics, invasions, arrests, and torture, all of which are crimes of #ethnic_cleansing, [are] dominating the daily lives of Palestinian citizens."

"We reaffirm our demand at the beginning of this year for an immediate ceasefire," the top diplomat asserted.

Malki concluded his message by hoping for the upcoming year "to be the year when the Palestinian people obtain their fair and legitimate national rights to return, self-determination, and the embodiment of the Palestinian state on the ground" with East al-Quds as its capital.

His call came as a global grassroots campaign has been launched to press for turning the traditional New Year's countdown across the globe into a countdown to immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

As the death toll keeps mounting in the coastal territory due to Israel's relentless attacks, Countdown2Ceasefire has called for global countdown events, from Southeast Asia to Latin America, in support of an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.