ISTANBUL

Indonesia is ready to deploy 20,000 peacekeepers in Gaza, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said on Tuesday while addressing the 80th session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Prabowo stressed that as one of the "largest contributors to UN peacekeeping forces," the Southeast Asian country will continue to "serve where peace needs guardians" actively.

“If and when the Security Council and this Assembly decide,” Indonesia is ready to dispatch 20,000 or “even more” soldiers to “help secure peace in Gaza or elsewhere in Palestine as part of a united multilateral force—so that the two‑state solution, so that peace in both Palestine and Israel, can become real, not just envisioned,” Prabowo said.

“Violence cannot be used to answer any political conflict because violence can only beget more violence,” Prabowo said, urging the UN to “take a decisive stance to stop this catastrophe.”

“Or the world will enter a very dangerous situation of unending wars and escalating violence,” he warned, adding that “no one country can bully” the whole human family.

Prabowo reminded the assembly of the "colonial domination, oppression, and slavery" Indonesians suffered under the Dutch colonial rule.

"We were treated less than dogs in our own homeland," he said, adding that Indonesians therefore know "what it means to be denied justice and what it means to live in apartheid, to live in poverty, and to be denied equal opportunity."

"We also knew what solidarity can do in our struggle for independence, in our fight to overcome hunger, disease, and poverty," Prabowo said, underscoring the "vital" UN support Indonesia received.

The Israeli army has killed more than 65,300 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since October 2023. The relentless bombardment has rendered the enclave uninhabitable and led to starvation and the spread of diseases.