Archives for 2021

5 February 2021 – Israeli Settlement Activities and Human Rights Abuses

05 March 2021 by

Excellency,

As the situation in Occupied Palestine continues to deteriorate and Israel continues to entrench its illegal occupation, we are compelled, week after week, to draw international attention to the human rights abuses and crimes against the Palestinian people and to appeal for action to halt these violations, which are causing daily trauma to Palestinian families and shredding the prospects for a peaceful solution.

The occupation’s impact on the safety, well-being and mental health of children has been especially distressing as child rights are gravely violated without consequence and children are left without protection. Faced with imminent danger, any parent’s impulse is naturally to protect his/her child. However, life under colonial occupation strips parents of the right and ability to protect their children from Israeli military raids, violent home invasions and arrest and detention by the occupying army for fear of even greater reprisal and punishment against the family, including lethal force and destruction of property.

These violations are not just arbitrary incidents, but rather part of a systematic pattern of policies designed to control the population through violence, repression and fear. A report by three Israeli NGOs – Breaking the Silence, Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), and Yesh Din – reveals how such inhumane policies are integral to the occupation’s entrenchment. The report, entitled A Life Exposed: Military Invasions of Palestinian Homes in the West Bank, reflects on extensive testimonies and interviews, including with former Israeli soldiers who took part in military raids and home invasions. Even just one reflection from the report conveys the chilling and disturbing impact of this daily practice:

“Their children are gathered in a room, afraid, trying to understand why they were suddenly yanked out of bed by masked soldiers who are now standing in the middle of their living room, photographing them, opening their drawers, speaking to them in broken Arabic. When the soldiers leave the house, they leave behind much more than a mess in the living room. The Palestinian family is left with trauma: with fear of what the next night will bring, children who wet their beds, and a feeling of being unsafe in their own home, of a loss of control. Every such invasion shatters the most basic premise of being a parent – the knowledge that they can protect their children.”

Insecurity to Palestinian children is also caused by other systematic violations, including home demolitions, settler violence and terror, and attacks on schools. On 2 March, independent UN Special Rapporteurs condemned Israel’s repeated demolition of Humsa Al-Bqai’a, stressing that “the ongoing destruction by the Israeli military of the homes, and the destruction and seizure of property, including humanitarian assistance, in Humsa Al-Bqai’a has been causing great hardship to the approximately 60 villagers, including 35 children.” According to OCHA, in just the first seven weeks of 2021, Israel’s policy of home demolitions has resulted in the destruction, seizure, or forced self-demolition of nearly 227 Palestinian-owned structures, including 93 donor-funded, displacing 367 Palestinians, including some 200 children. Moreover, at least 53 schools are under threat of demolition. Like many Palestinian villages, Israel attempts to justify destruction of Humsa Al-Bqaia’ and other areas based on empty pretexts, all aimed to seize the land and entrench the occupation. Israel indiscriminately designates Palestinian villages as “military firing zones”, allowing soldiers to forcibly uproot Palestinians and destroy their homes, only to be replaced by settlements and segregated settler-only roads, further cementing the apartheid nature of this colonial occupation in grave breach of the law. As stressed by the Special Rapporteurs, the occupying Power has strict obligations under international law and “cannot use the territory under occupation to conduct military training operations without ample justification. We note that Israel has plentiful grounds for military training within its own borders.”

The trajectory of demolitions indicates that such policies will only intensify as Israel seeks to further clear Palestinian land of its inhabitants for seizure to facilitate its ongoing illegal settlement expansion. While Israel claims it has “suspended” annexation plans, de facto annexation continues unabated and with the full knowledge of the international community, and yet without consequence.

In addition to Humsa, other recent examples include the 28 February demolition of a Palestinian home for the fourth time in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Isawiyya. The homeowner, Hatim Hussein Abu Riyala, suffers from paraplegia paralysis caused in a previous demolition of his home. On 2 March, occupation forces carried out multiple demolitions, demolishing a home in Battir, near Bethlehem, and three homes in Masafer Yatta, near Al-Khalil (Hebron). Then, on 3 March, occupying forces demolished the two-story home of the Abu Mayala family in the Shufat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, claiming it was built without a license, which are nearly impossible to obtain from the occupying authorities.

Despite legal prohibitions and repeated Security Council and General Assembly demands for cessation of such actions, Israel has pursued demolitions and forced displacement as key policies since the occupation began in 1967, relying on such violations to advance its colonization and annexation plans. This has become blatantly clear to the international community, and yet again there have been no consequences.

In this regard, we draw attention to a letter, sent on 28 February and signed by 442 European parliamentarians, cautioning against Israel’s de facto annexation plans. The parliamentarians stress that despite the claim that Israel has suspended annexation, “developments on the ground clearly point to a reality of rapidly progressing de facto annexation, especially through accelerated settlement expansion and demolitions of Palestinian structures.” We reiterate here our call for the Security Council to uphold its own resolutions and its very credibility by demanding an immediate end to such violations. Resolution 2334 (2016) which directly addressed these grave violations, must be implemented without exception.

In the absence of accountability, the occupation’s illegal behavior has only emboldened settler violence, with attacks on Palestinian civilians and properties surging in recent months. Protected by the Israeli military, settlers have enjoyed decades of impunity at the expense of Palestinian suffering. Just this week, Israeli settlers from the so-called “Ahiya” outpost attacked homes and vehicles in Jaloud, south of Nablus. Settlers regularly attack the town, as Israeli soldiers either stand by watching or join in the attacks. Also, on 26 February, occupying forces surrounded Kifl Haris, near Salfit, blocking entry and exit points to the town to escort a religious march of extremist settlers. The town’s shrines were desecrated, homes attacked, and roads vandalized in the aftermath.

On 2 March, the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land (ACOHL) condemned repeated Israeli settler attacks against the Romanian Orthodox monastery in Jerusalem. The monastery was attacked last month by an Israeli settler, followed by another settler attack this week, setting fire to the church’s entrance. The ACOHL urged that “All political and religious authorities of the City should unite in condemning these acts so frequent in these last months in Jerusalem. For that reason, we demand the Israeli security authorities investigate these incidents seriously and bring assailants to justice.”

Israel also persists with its crushing of Palestinian protests and the arbitrary arrest and detention of civilians, including children. In the past week, Israeli occupation forces attacked several peaceful anti-settlements rallies across Occupied Palestine in Deir Jarir near Ramallah, in Kafr Qaddum near Qalqilya and elsewhere, using excessive and lethal force against unarmed civilians, injuring dozens. In the Kafr Qaddum protest, occupation forces shot a 10-year-old child in the chest with a rubber bullet.

In the past week, night raids were also repeatedly carried out by the Israeli occupying forces resulting in the detention of 20 Palestinians on 1 March, and 22 Palestinians on 2 March alone. Among those arrested are children and youth, aged between 14 and 20. Following this systematic pattern, hundreds of Palestinians, including women and children, risk being arrested in the coming weeks, as Israel persists with its violations of international humanitarian and human rights law and total disregard for the pandemic state of emergency and the well-being of the Palestinian civilian population under its occupation.

In this regard, we must also highlight the case of Palestinian parliamentarian Ms. Khalida Jarrar, who has been held in Israeli administrative detention without trial or charge since her arbitrary arrest in October 2019. This week, an Israeli military court sentenced Ms. Jarrar to two years in prison, making her the eighth elected Palestinian parliamentarian currently held in Israeli captivity.

Throughout 2020, the international community has seen the dangerous effects and consequences of this prolonged occupation and the relentless Israeli campaign violating international law and the global consensus regarding a just solution for the Palestine question. Despite Israel’s attempts to disguise itself as peace-seeking occupier, its nearly 54-year military occupation and flagrant colonization and annexation drive stand in total contradiction. As Israel invokes claims of anti-Semitism and one-sided bias to silence the criticism of its occupation, it fails to question how it has gotten away with so much impunity.

The answer is because of a lack of collective will to ensure accountability. Since the founding of the United Nations, the international community has focused tremendous energy and resources on the question of Palestine, only to deliver statements with no credible measures towards actually ending Israel’s systemic impunity and justly resolving the conflict. This has only emboldened Israel, permitting it to entrench its occupation and cause irreversible damage to the two-State solution while evading accountability for its violations and crimes.

The responsibilities of the international community, including the Security Council, are clear. Decades of inaction have made turned the Palestine question a litmus test of the international community’s legal and moral obligations. As Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk has stated: A deep-rooted problem at the heart of this conflict has not been the clarity of international law, but the unwillingness of the international community to enforce what it has proclaimed.” This makes ever more important the decision announced on 3 March by the ICC Prosecutor to initiate an investigation respecting the Situation in Palestine. It is time to bring a halt to impunity and to seek justice for the many victims of this illegal occupation.

This letter is in follow-up to our 706 letters regarding the ongoing crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, which constitutes the territory of the State of Palestine. These letters, dated from 29 September 2000 (A/55/432-S/2000/921) to 25 February 2021 (A/ES-10/xxx-S/2021/xxx) constitute a basic record of the crimes being committed by Israel, the occupying Power, against the Palestinian people since September 2000. For all of these war crimes, acts of State terrorism and systematic human rights violations being committed against the Palestinian people, Israel, the occupying Power, must be held accountable and the perpetrators must be brought to justice.

I should be grateful if you would arrange to have this letter distributed as an official document of the tenth emergency special session of the General Assembly, under agenda item 5, and of the Security Council.

Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Dr. Riyad Mansour

Minister, Permanent Observer

25 February 2021 – Israeli Colonization and Human Rights Abuses against the Palestinian people

25 February 2021 by

Excellency,

I must again draw attention to the critical situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, due to escalating violations by Israel, the occupying Power, against the Palestinian people.

Just over a week has passed since our last letter, and not a day has gone by where Israel has not exploited the COVID-19 crisis to intensify its violations as the world remains consumed by the pandemic. These manifestations of belligerent occupation are designed to inflict severe suffering through acts of violence, dispossession, displacement, dehumanization, and other forms of calibrated oppression, part and parcel of a blatant colonization and annexation drive in grave breach of the law.

We must recall that today marks the 27^th anniversary of the massacre perpetrated by a terrorist Israeli settler at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Al-Khalil (Hebron), who killed 29 Palestinians worshipping at dawn prayers, among them children and elderly, and wounded dozens of others. That terrorist settlers’ presence and lawlessness was aided and abetted by the occupying Power, as it continues to do to this day with the hundreds of thousands of settlers it continues to transfer to Occupied Palestine in grave breach of the 4^th Geneva Convention and in violation of obligations under Security Council resolutions, including resolution 904 (1994), which called, inter alia, for the disarming of Israeli settlers and militias and for measures to be taken to guarantee the safety and protection of Palestinian civilians.

The Ibrahimi Mosque massacre was a turning point fully exploited by Israel to close off parts of the Old City of Al-Khalil to Palestinians, including Al-Shuhada Street, where hundreds of shops were closed by military order and remain so to this day, choking socio-economic life and movement in the city; to divide the city and to divide the Mosque itself, all for the protection and privilege of the extremist group of fanatical Jewish settlers illegally transferred there. Such methodical and brutal colonization continues to this day all over the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, as Israel further entrenches its nearly 54-year, illegal occupation.

For decades now, Israel has tried to normalize its illegal policies of home demolitions and forced displacement and its construction of colonial settlements in Palestine under countless pretexts ranging from “security concerns”, to settler “claims” to properties, to the absence of construction permits, to Biblical claims as justifications for these crimes. Yet nothing can be considered normal about such abnormal, immoral and illegal acts and the grave impact on the people targeted, children, women and men alike.

In this regard, we must draw attention to the situation in occupied East Jerusalem, where countless Palestinian families face forced eviction from their homes to make way for Israeli settlers. These illegal actions are proceeding apace with the support of Israeli occupation courts, who continue to render “judicial” decisions reinforcing such crimes against Palestinian families, claiming that the evictions are necessary to enable Jews to “recover” properties since Israel’s establishment. However, the same law does not apply to Palestinians who were and remain uprooted and dispossessed from their homes.

Israeli courts rejected appeals by Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods against forced eviction from their homes in favor of the state-backed Nahalat Shimon and Ateret Cohanim settler groups. The families, who have lived in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan long before Israel’s establishment and the start of the occupation, are facing decades-old campaigns by settler groups that enjoy automatic support of the occupation’s so-called legal system.

The impending mass displacement campaigns in occupied East Jerusalem order that Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah must abandon their homes by 2 May 2021, and families in Silwan by August 2021. According to the Israeli NGO Ir Amim, if the evictions are not halted, over a thousand of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan could be uprooted from their homes and communities, and supplanted by settlers, amounting to a form of forcible transfer. These illegal campaigns aim to replicate the situation in Al-Khalil, where settler enclaves are encroaching on Palestinians inside the city itself, imposing an unbearable reality of oppression, segregation, and discrimination and facilitating annexation plans.

Such practices, which promote and perpetuate the supremacy and privilege of one group over another, a blatantly discriminatory and apartheid practice, constitute grave breaches of the 4^th Geneva Convention, and serious violations of Security Council and General Assembly resolutions which prohibit any attempts to alter the character, demographic composition and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem. We recall Security Council resolution 2334 (2016), which, inter alia, condemned “all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law and relevant resolutions”.

In addition to the ongoing and repeated displacement and trauma inflicted on Palestinian families in Humsa Al-Baqia in the Jordan Valley and the destruction of humanitarian to these families, the occupying Power persists with home demolitions and evictions in other parts of Palestine. On 15 February, another two Palestinian families in Jerusalem were forced to self-demolish their homes to avoid the heavy demolition fees imposed by the occupation. This includes the Awadallah family, who had to self-demolish their two-story home built in Shufat over 20 years ago after numerous unsuccessful attempts to obtain an occupation-issued permit. On the same day, Israeli authorities issued demolition orders against more Palestinian homes in Jerusalem, and ordered a construction halt for three homes in Al-Khader, south of Bethlehem, again under the pretext that they were built without permits, preparing to demolish those homes yet again. According to the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence, Israel has rejected nearly 99 percent of Palestinian building permit applications over the years, making it impossible for Palestinians to build and develop their communities in their own land.

These systematic violations are clearly part of Israel’s land grab and settlement expansion schemes, which continue unabated, accompanied by the transfer of more settlers and their increasing violence and extremism against the Palestinian population. These crimes are officially supported by the Israeli government and numerous organizations, including those claiming to be “charities”, such as the Jewish National Fund (JNF), which recently decided to “officially authorize” the purchase of occupied Palestinian land to accelerate settlement expansion. As stated by the US-based Foundation for Middle East Peace, “Notwithstanding the significant controversy this “new” policy has provoked, the reality is that the JNF has long worked in support of settlements. What is different now is that, where in the past the JNF preferred to leave its settlement-related activities deliberately obscured, under the new policy the JNF would openly claim and promote its support for settlements.”

Israel’s annexation agenda is further exposed by its construction of hundreds of roads, tunnels, and overpasses designed to serve settlers across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. For instance, one of Israel’s ongoing annexation projects includes the construction of the segregated and so-called “Sovereignty Road”, which aims to connect the illegal “Ma’ale Adumim” settlement to nearby settlement blocs and outposts. Another aim of this scheme is clearly to advance the construction of settlements in the so-called “E-1” area, where Israel seeks to entrench settler presence in order to cause irreversible damage the contiguity of the Palestinian State. As cautioned by the Israeli NGO Peace Now in regard to this illegal move: “The Israeli government is de facto annexing the West Bank by investing billions of shekels into roads designed to double the number of settlers to a million and even more.”

We recall once again Security Council resolution 2334, by which the Council, inter alia:

Reiterated “its demand that Israel immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and that it fully respect all of its legal obligations in this regard”;

Underlined “that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines, including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations”;
Called upon States “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967”.

Yet, Israel persists in defying the Security Council, carrying on with all of these illegal measures, which have also been accompanied by a sharp uptick in settler violence against Palestinians, with Israeli soldiers either joining in settler-related attacks or refusing to intervene. In an urgent appeal to several UN Special Rapporteurs on the escalation of settler violence, Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq has urgently requested the UN’s “immediate intervention to protect the Palestinian protected population from systematic and ongoing settler attacks, which are conducted with institutionalized impunity.”

It is undeniable that such settler violence and aggression is directly incited by Israeli government, military and religious officials and the culture of hate that continues to be fueled extremist rhetoric. According to a recent study by the Hebrew University, dubbed the ‘Map of Hatred’, Palestinians are the group most feared and hated by Israeli Jews, with polls suggesting the high rates of hatred and rejection indicate that anti-Palestinian incitement is tolerated and acceptable. As Israel enters yet another round of elections, the cynical connection between anti-Palestinian rhetoric and incitement continues at fever-pitch.

This dehumanization of the Palestinian people also continues to be manifested in Israel’s ongoing arrest and detention of civilians and its abuse of the nearly 5,000 held captive in its jails. In recent weeks, dozens of Palestinians, including children, have been rounded-up and detained. This shockingly included two young boys, ages 8 and 6, in the town of Hizma. Also, on 16 February, a Palestinian woman, Rahmeh Abu Ahour, 67, suffered a fatal heart attack after Israeli soldiers ransacked her home during a raid in Abu Njeim, east of Bethlehem. Israeli occupation forces routinely carry out such violent arrest raids with utter disregard for the state of emergency declared in the West Bank due to the pandemic and for the well-being of the Palestinian civilian population, in grave violation of international humanitarian law.

The occupying Power also persists with its use of administrative detention, holding Palestinians indefinitely, without charge or trial. Among the hundreds being held is Mohammad Al-Halabi, a Palestinian aid worker from the Gaza Strip, who has been administratively detained for four years. According to his lawyer, Al-Halabi has attended more than 140 military court hearings since his arrest. UN Human rights experts have called on Israel to release Al-Halabi or to immediately grant him a fair trial, stating: “The international rule of law requires that an individual who is arrested must only be detained if there are reasonable suspicions that she or he has committed a recognized crime, and the charges and the evidence must be clearly laid out so defendants know what they have to answer.” Another military court hearing is scheduled for Al-Halabi on 3 March 2021. We call for his release and the release of all Palestinian civilians illegally imprisoned by the occupying Power.

Israel also persists with its immoral policy of withholding bodies of dead Palestinians, collectively punishing and traumatizing their families, who are prohibited from burying their loved ones in accordance with religious and cultural rituals. On 20 February, Israel finally returned the body of Daoud Al-Khatib, who died in September of last year due to ill-treatment and medical negligence by the prison authorities. Yet at least 70 Palestinian bodies continue to be held by the occupying Power, in addition to the hundreds withheld and buried in secret in cemeteries controlled by the occupation. We call for an end to this cruel and illegal practice and the return of the bodies to their families for burial.

As we near 54 years since the onset occupation and observe numerous other tragic anniversaries once again this year, conventional wisdom holds that the only viable response to Israeli impunity is through preventive measures, including serious measures of accountability. Without consequence these crimes and this inhumanity will clearly not end.

The Security Council must uphold its Charter duty for the maintenance of international peace and security. Israel cannot continue to be the exception to every rule; this privileged treatment has only emboldened its impunity and undermined international law, with disastrous effect on our people and the rules-based system as a whole. It is high-time for accountability, for only halting violations and de-escalating the situation can create trust and open a credible horizon for making peace, a peace sought worldwide by all supporting the longstanding international consensus based on the relevant UN resolutions.

As stated by Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh at the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee meeting earlier this week: “While we remain committed to peace based on the two-State solution to achieve the legitimate national rights of our people to live in their independent sovereign contiguous State of Palestine on 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a just solution to the refugees’ question based on UN resolution 194, the reality on the ground after 30 years of peace process, is a systematic destruction of the Palestinian State and the two-State solution.” We urge the international community to act forthwith to uphold international law, to protect the Palestinian people, to stop the destruction of two-State solution, and to exert the needed efforts to advance the realization of a just peace, a Palestinian-Israeli peace that will not only transform the Middle East region but the prospects for global peace and security.

I should be grateful if you would arrange to have the text of the present letter made available to the members of the Security Council for their immediate, valuable consideration and also distributed as an official document of the Security Council.

Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Dr. Riyad Mansour

Minister, Permanent Observer

Filed Under: Identical Letters, Mission Documents, Uncategorized Tagged With: Identical Letters

16 February 2021 – Illegal Colonization and Human Rights Abuses by Israel

16 February 2021 by

Excellency,

The critical situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, continues to worsen due to the escalating illegal policies and practices of Israel, the occupying Power, against the Palestinian people.

The month of January witnessed grave Israeli violations of international law, with February regrettably following the same trajectory of unabated, systematic colonization and human rights abuses, entrenching the occupation and further damaging the prospects for a just solution. As illegal settlement and annexation activities escalate, so do the oppression and collective punishment of the Palestinian people, with at least 456 Palestinians, including at least 93 children and 8 women, arrested and detained in January alone.

Home demolitions have also continued to rise. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that the year 2020 witnessed the highest number of demolitions of Palestinian homes and structures by Israeli occupation forces since the documentation of this inhumane practice began. Considering the levels of demolition and dispossession in January, it is clear that Israel is insistent on its path of impunity, portending a new violation’s record in 2021. Since the start of 2021, Israeli occupation forces have already demolished, seized or forced Palestinians to demolish at least 178 structures, displacing over 259 people, including at least 140 children.

As highlighted in previous letters, in two major demolition campaigns on 1 and 3 February, Israeli occupation forces demolished over 45 structures in Khirbet Humsa (also known as Humsa al-Bqai’a) in the Jordan Valley, repeatedly displacing and rendering homeless the 60 people, including 35 children, that comprise the nine families in that part of the community, who are now threatened with the risk of forcible transfer. This vulnerable Bedouin community has now been subject to four mass demolitions by Israeli occupation forces, including the destruction of homes, livestock shelters and water facilities, many of which had been funded by the European Union and the United Kingdom.

Despite Israeli movement restrictions, the Palestinian Government and international organizations mobilized to provide urgent humanitarian assistance to the displaced families. However, according to OCHA and the Norwegian Refugee Council, Israeli occupation forces have confiscated a significant proportion of the assistance, including tents, leaving the displaced families to the mercy of the harsh elements of winter and violating innumerable human rights, including the right to education, with over 50 schools indiscriminately targeted with demolition orders. We refer in this regard to the 5 February joint statement by UN agencies (OCHA, OHCHR, and UNICEF) drawing the international community’s attention to the Israeli demolition campaign against Humsa al-Bqai’a and deeming such actions by the occupying Power to constitute direct breaches of international law.

The impact of these illegal and immoral actions on children is especially severe. According to documentation by Save the Children, in 2020 over 840 structures were demolished by the occupation, displacing more than 500 children, leaving them and their families homeless, devastating their communities, and disrupting every aspect of their lives. As stressed by Jason Lee, Save the Children’s country director, “Children are paying the highest price. Tearing down a house, a school or other vital infrastructure, especially during a pandemic, destroys their right to an education, to have a home. It targets their future, their health, their safety and well-being”.

Simultaneous to the uprooting and traumatizing of our people, Israel also continues to raze and confiscate Palestinian land and uproot trees, thieving Palestinian property and destroying livelihoods. In the period between 19 January and 1 February, Israeli occupation forces uprooted thousands of trees near the city of Tubas that had been planted eight years ago as part of a project supervised by the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture. In a separate assault, Israeli forces bulldozed nearly 1,000 trees in Bethlehem. Both incidents took place on the grounds that the land had been declared ‘state land,’ which is a baseless claim used to justify Israel’s annexationist intentions.

Israel’s demolition campaign is designed to uproot Palestinians from their land through state-sponsored dispossession. The objective is clear: maximal territory minus the presence of Palestinians, i.e. ethnic cleansing. The methodical implementation of this plan has been especially intense in and around areas critical to realization of the two-State solution and preservation of the contiguity of the State of Palestine, both of which the occupying Power seeks to destroy.

Although the international community has explicitly called for the cessation of home demolitions, forced evictions, land confiscation and all settlement activities, as reflected in relevant UN resolutions, and while governments, parliamentarians, human rights groups, and other international organizations have equally called for an end to these illegal actions, Israel continues to violate international law with absolute impunity. The consequences for the Palestinian people have been dire and the prospects for a just peace have been suffocated.

As of today, hundreds of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem are in danger of being dispossessed of their homes and properties following baseless legal battles waged by settler organizations closely linked to the Israeli government. Adding to the misery of the vulnerable families, who have lived in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan long before Israel’s establishment and the start of the occupation, Israeli courts, where no justice can be found, actually aim to handover their homes and properties to settlers.

Given the urgency of the matter, over 80 British parliamentarians recently sent a letter to the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Raab, writing that Israel’s looming dispossession of Palestinian families in Jerusalem must be prevented, and that such dispossession and forcible transfer is a grave violation of the 4^th Geneva Convention. Moreover, the parliamentarians called for the necessary legal and political measures to address Israel’s mass dispossession of the Palestinian people and settlement campaign. They stressed that: “All measures should be on the table, including reducing diplomatic engagement and banning trade in settlement products in full conformity with international law obligations in order to challenge the settler economy that profits from the occupation.”

Similarly, humanitarian organizations have raised concerns and issued warnings over Israel’s dispossession campaign against the Palestinian people. On 9 February, the Norwegian Refugee Council underscored the urgency of the matter, warning that the international community “has once again witnessed attacks on some of the poorest families on occupied Palestinian land. Empty words of ‘concern’ are not enough for these families who find themselves homeless and deprived of the most basic needs. The international community, including European governments, must do more to stop forced displacement and demand that Israel provide reparations to Palestinian victims.”

Regrettably, the failure to hold Israel accountable thus far has greatly emboldened these crimes, including acts of violence, destruction and terror by Israeli settlers across Occupied Palestine. Under the protection of Israeli soldiers, extremist settlers continue to kill, assault and abduct Palestinian civilians and to damage homes, uproot trees, desecrate houses of worship, and routinely incite against, harass and intimidate the Palestinian population, including children.

On 5 February, Israeli settlers shot and killed a Palestinian man in Ras Karkar, north of Ramallah. Khaled Nofal, 34, was killed by settlers near the illegal outpost of “Sde Efraim”, which was erected on privately-owned Palestinian land seized for settlement expansion. Israeli occupation forces prevented Palestinian medics from accessing the site, and have yet to bring the perpetrators to justice.

On 10 February, an Israeli settler from the infamous settlement of “Ariel” ran over a Palestinian man near Salfit, killing him instantly. On 12 February, another settler car attack took place near Tubas, killing one Palestinian and injuring two others. While on a hike, Bilal Bawatneh, 52, was killed instantly as the criminal settler escaped using settler-only roads leading to nearby settlements. Had the perpetrators been Palestinian, it is well known that Israeli forces would have demolished their families’ homes and restricted movement across the West Bank, imposing collective punishment on the entire civilian population, in order to punish the perpetrator and in complete disregard for international law.

Also last week, video footage emerged showing an Israeli settler carrying out an attack against the Romanian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem, causing damage to the church property. A statement by the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem warned that “Israeli extremists’ attacks against churches and mosques in Jerusalem are alarmingly on the rise, and the failure of Israeli official authorities to deal with them and their tolerance towards such terrorist acts will definitely lead to more fueling of the conflict in the Holy City, and will keep it further away from achieving peace and stability.”

On 10 February, the mayor of Al-Khalil (Hebron), Mr. Taysir Abu Senineh, received numerous death threats from the leader of the so-called “Kiryat Arba” settlement, along with threats from Israeli parliamentarian Moshe Abutbul. Both the settler leader and politician have intensified their collaborative campaign of anti-Palestinian incitement aimed at intimidating the population and consolidating Israel’s “eternal occupation” of Al-Khalil, including in the southern hills of the area where Palestinian communities, including in Masafer Yatta, are under grave threat of displacement.

Even in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, Israeli attacks and military raids have escalated. During an overnight raid on 10 February, Israeli occupation forces launched multiple incursions across the occupied West Bank and detained over 30 Palestinians, most of them children, adding to the thousands of Palestinian civilians being illegally held captive by the occupation.

It is beyond disturbing to imagine the experience and trauma endured by Palestinian children as they are detained, blindfolded, and taken away from their parents and homes in the middle of the night only to be victims of Israel’s systematic practices of arbitrary detention and torture. We reiterate the call for the immediate release of all Palestinian children being held by the occupying Power and for Israel’s respect for its obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Turning to the situation in the Gaza Strip, we again sound the alarm about the deplorable humanitarian and socioeconomic conditions there due to the illegal Israeli blockade that has caused such severe deprivation, hunger and misery on its two million inhabitants, the majority Palestine refugees, who continue to bear the hardships of the original dispossession and displacement inflicted on them by Israel. Today, in yet another act of inhumanity, the occupying Power blocked the entry to Gaza of 2,000 doses of coronavirus vaccines intended for frontline health workers, including personnel in ICU units treating patients with the virus. This constitutes yet another grave breach of Israel’s obligations under the 4^th Geneva Convention.

Israeli occupation forces continue to infiltrate Gaza’s shores and agricultural lands with military boats and earth-moving machinery, indiscriminately attacking civilians and causing significant damage to Gaza’s already devastated economy and infrastructure. Just two days ago, occupation forces opened on fire at Palestinian farmers working in their land near the border, depriving them of their source of sustenance and livelihood. This was preceded by yet another attack on Palestinian fishermen, who were fired at with live ammunition and water cannons on 7 February.

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) recent decision affirming jurisdiction as to the situation Palestine brings hope that long-overdue accountability and justice are possible. The deterrent capacity of the Court is also undoubted as the perpetrators of war crimes against the Palestinian people have been put on notice. Despite Israel’s threats and false accusations of anti-Semitism against the ICC, the Court has recognized that the legitimacy and necessity of impartially investigating the situation in Palestine for the cause of justice, a central element for the realization of peace.

Since the onset of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territory in 1967, Israel has yet to bear an ounce of accountability for decades of impunity and oppression. The result has been devastating for the Palestinian people and for the goal of a just and lasting peace and security between Palestine and Israel, making the applicability of international law, including UN resolutions, more imperative than ever. The Security Council in particular must uphold its Charter duty for the maintenance of international peace and security. This too surely requires preventive measures, including measures of accountability. We therefore again appeal for action by the Council to uphold the law and implement its resolutions on the Palestine question. The Council must overcome its paralysis and act forthwith towards ending the Israeli occupation in all its manifestations, including the colonial settlement regime, and supporting the realization of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace.

In closing, we recall, when asked about the Israeli occupation in late 2016, then Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, stated: “The lack of any significant movement towards a political resolution and ongoing violations of international human rights and humanitarian law are exacerbated by the lack of accountability for previous violations… Tackling impunity must be the highest priority.” Nearly five years later, the occupation is entrenching by the minute while accountability remains absent. We must seize this opportunity to prevent the passing of yet another year of inaction and raging impunity at the expense of more Palestinian suffering and yet another lost generation.

Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Dr. Riyad Mansour

Minister, Permanent Observer

Filed Under: Identical Letters, Mission Documents, Uncategorized Tagged With: Identical Letters

4 February 2021 – Illegal Israeli Settlement Colonization

04 February 2021 by

Excellency,

The situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, continues to deteriorate due to the escalating illegal policies and practices of Israel, the occupying Power.

Every day Israel proves it hasn’t abandoned its annexation plans. In every action, annexation is the driving force and ultimate goal. This is blatantly apparent in the illegal plans for the so-called “Givat Hamatos” settlement, yet another installment in Israel’s creeping annexation scheme, implemented across the nearly 54 years of this illegal occupation, by which it has swallowed up more and more Palestinian land, step by step, artificially dividing and fragmenting our land.

Israel’s colonial settlement drive in Jabal Abu Ghneim, around the Mar Elias Monastery and between Beit Safafa and Bethlehem, referred to by Israel as “Har Homa” and “Giv’at Hamatos”, in addition to the ongoing expansion of settlement infrastructure, including Jewish-only bypass roads, threatening the Cremisan Valley and Al Slayeb in Beit Jala, referred to by the occupying Power as “Gilo”, deprive Palestine of some of its most important lands, including natural resources, as part of the ongoing process of annexation aimed at surrounding Palestinian cities, towns and villages with a ring of settlements and severing the natural connection and contiguity between these areas and particularly between the sister cities of Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

As cautioned by the Mayor of Bethlehem, Mr. Anton Salman, “such continued colonial-settlement expansion does not only separate the geography between the holy cities, it also contributes to the sabotage of our Palestinian practices and traditions, whether religious or cultural, inherited from our ancestors”. The impact is real, far-reaching and dangerous.

The illegal “Givat Hamatos” settlement will destroy the Palestinian State’s contiguity and deal a devastating blow to the two-State solution. Ask the residents of Beit Safafa and Sharafat, who have witnessed widespread dispossession and displacement due to Israel’s frenzied colonization and have lost faith in the two-State solution and the possibility of peace. Once “Givat Hamatos” is completed, towns like Beit Safafa and Sharafat will be completely isolated and surrounded by the Wall and illegal settlements, frighteningly resembling the Bantustans of apartheid South Africa. This is the reality that they, like millions of Palestinians under this illegal occupation, are living.

Back in 1997 we urged the Security Council to take action to stop the illegal settlement of Jabal Abu Ghneim/Har Homa. This was met with broad international condemnation of Israel’s plans and led to the convening by the General Assembly of its tenth emergency special session. Yet no decisive action was taken to stop the occupying Power, bringing us to the brink we are at today. Will the international community allow Israel carry on with these colonial plans between Bethlehem and Jerusalem to make a new “Jabal Abu Ghneim” without consequence, or will it act to uphold the law and salvage peace prospects?

It is no secret why such impunity prevails. Israel persists with this illegal colonization and annexation campaign because it is cost-free, because it has never been held responsible for its flagrant violations of international law and UN resolutions. This is epitomized in the events of recent weeks where, even after Israel revealed plans for the construction of thousands more settlement units in “Givat Hammatos” and other settlements across the West Bank, the international community has been unable to move beyond condemnation and appeals for cessation to concrete action to hold the occupying Power accountable and compel a halt to these crimes.

We reiterate: whether annexation is implemented partially or totally, de facto or de jure, the international community is obliged to take serious, tangible action, as per international law and the relevant UN resolutions, including Security Council resolution 2334 (2016).

The false Israeli narrative that these settlements are a part of Israel must be firmly rejected. We recall Security Council resolution 2334, by which the Council not only demanded that Israel cease all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, but directly called upon States “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.”

Lack of respect for resolution 2334 and the absence of accountability has led to further Israeli colonization and annexation measures in our land, resulting in further dispossession, displacement and other violations of the rights of the Palestinian people. Even in this time of pandemic, the Israeli occupation has failed to demonstrate an ounce of humanity as Palestinian homes, structures, and properties continue to be demolished.

Yesterday, Israeli occupying forces demolished Khirbet Humsa in the northern Jordan Valley for the second time in the past 48 hours and for the third time in less than three months. Thirteen residential structures – home to 11 Palestinian families consisting of 74 people, 41 of them children – and five structures and tents for livestock were dismantled and confiscated and the families were forced to relocate to another area. This is forced transfer, a blatant violation of the 4^th Geneva Convention, amounting to yet another war crime by Israel against the Palestinian people.

This was preceded on 24 January by the demolition of agricultural structures, including water wells, in the village of Al-Khader, south of Bethlehem, and, on 26 January, the issuance of a demolition order against a medical clinic in Zanouta, south of Al-Khalil (Hebron), again at a time of raging pandemic. The following day, Israeli occupation forces stormed Masafer Yatta, south of Al-Khalil, demolishing a mosque. That demolition was carried out less than two weeks since our last letter, which warned against the occupation’s intentions to destroy many buildings in Masafer Yatta, including the mosque and a school funded by the European Union. On 2 February, clearly not coincidentally, the area of Masafer Yatta was declared by Israel as a “firing zone” for a large-scale military training maneuver, forcing the residents from their homes and exposing the plans to seize this area.

Similarly, on 27 January, Israeli occupation forces once again stormed Khan al-Ahmar, which has been routinely targeted over the years by the Israeli military, and faces imminent destruction to clear the way for the expansion of the illegal settlements of “Ma’ale Adumim” and “Kfar Adumim”. According to OCHA, Khan al-Ahmar is “one of the 46 Bedouin communities in the central West Bank that the UN views as at risk of forcible transfer, including due to a coercive environment generated by Israeli practices and policies, including plans to move the communities from their current locations.”

All of this has been accompanied by constant settler rampages. Under the protection of Israeli soldiers, along with the backing of the Israeli government, Israeli settlers, including extremist militias, enjoy near absolute impunity. Since our last letter, settlers have caused damage to Palestinian homes, vehicles and uprooted hundreds of more trees, depriving Palestinians of their livelihoods and inflicting daily harassment, intimidation and violence on Palestinian civilians, including children, including the attempted kidnapping of an 11-year old Palestinian girl that was fortunately averted.

The fact is that the violence and criminality of the Israeli settlers is part and parcel of the illegal settlement drive. The settlers and the government work hand in glove, two sides of the same operation, aimed at colonizing and annexing our land. As Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has pointed out: “Israel benefits from the repercussions, as settler violence has gradually dispossessed Palestinians of more and more areas in the West Bank, paving the way for a state takeover of land and resources.” This is the engine for what B’tselem has rightly identified as Israel’s aim of “geographically and demographically engineering space” to ensure its control and “Jewish supremacy” in all of the land.

This policy has clearly also fueled continued oppression of the occupied population, with total disregard for Palestinian lives. Young Palestinian males continue to be disproportionately affected. On 26 January, Atallah Mohammad Rayan, 17, was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers near Salfit, after occupation forces claimed he carried a knife. Eyewitnesses reported that Israeli soldiers made no attempt to provide first aid, and the child was left to bleed until succumbing to his wounds. On 31 January, a young Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli occupation forces south of Bethlehem. Eyewitnesses also reported that the young man was left to die as occupation forces prevented him from receiving emergency aid following the incident.

Here, we must again draw urgent attention to the plight of Palestinian children being held captive in Israeli jails along with thousands of other Palestinians. We highlight today the case of Amal Nakhleh, a 17 year old-boy, who was sentenced by Israeli military court to 6 months of administrative detention without charge or trial. The EU and several human rights organizations have called for release of Amal, who suffers from myasthenia gravis, a rare chronic autoimmune disease that causes muscle weakness, including in the muscles used for breathing and swallowing. We reiterate the call for his immediate release and that of all Palestinian children being held by the occupying Power and for Israel’s respect for its obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

It is impossible in one letter to convey how pervasive, insidious and destructive this illegal occupation’s policies and practices are to our people, how severe the impact is on every aspect of life, sparing no one. Whether imposing in its illegal colonization and annexation plans or its illegal and immoral blockade of the Gaza Strip, Israel is perpetrating countless violations causing widespread Palestinian suffering and destroying the viability of the two-State solution and the prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace and security. The absence of accountability undoubtedly encourages these crimes as Israel continues to evade consequences, distracting the international community with its lip service to peace, while actually making it impossible to realize. Only accountability can alter this dismal equation. We thus appeal today, as we have for years, for tangible international action, including by the Security Council, to uphold the rule of law, protect civilians and salvage the prospects for a just, lasting and peaceful solution, in accordance with the relevant resolutions, before it is too late.

Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Dr. Riyad Mansour

Minister, Permanent Observer

Filed Under: Identical Letters, Mission Documents, Uncategorized Tagged With: Identical Letters

4 February 2021 – Remarks by H.E. Minister Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, at the first annual meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People

04 February 2021 by

Excellencies,

Mr. Secretary-General António Guterres

Chair of the Committee, Ambassador Cheikh Niang of Senegal

Vice-Chairs of the Committee Bureau, Afghanistan, Cuba, Indonesia, Namibia, Nicaragua

Members and Observers of the Committee

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a pleasures seeing you all, nearly a year since we last met in person.

I am honored to address you on behalf of the State of Palestine and wish to reaffirm our gratitude to the Chair and Bureau and all Members and Observers of the Committee for their steadfast support for our just cause and the pursuit by the Palestinian people of their inalienable rights. Your principled solidarity is deeply appreciated and needed now more than ever and we are ready to fully cooperate to implement the Committee’s forward-looking programme of work for 2021.

Mr. Secretary-General, we are honored by your presence at our meeting today and thank you for your strong support to the Committee. We deeply appreciate your dedication a just and lasting peace and your tireless advocacy, consistently striving for an active and meaningful role for the United Nations, as per its Charter and in implementation of its resolutions, the foundations of a peaceful solution.

Excellencies, Dear Friends,

The past year brought immense challenges and changes for the international community, sparing no one and deepening existing vulnerabilities, inequities and suffering around the world. For the Palestinian people, bearing the burden and hardships of decades of occupation, oppression and displacement, those challenges and changes have been even more trying and painful.

As the international community confronts the COVID-19 pandemic and array of other crises, from poverty and hunger, to climate change, to conflicts and the grave humanitarian, socio-economic and security consequences they are wreaking, the goal of ‘building back better’ must be broad and inclusive. We appeal that Palestine not be the exception to these lofty goals.

As we look towards the future, we must learn the lessons of the past to redress all that has diminished multilateralism and undermined respect for international law, not only impairing our collective abilities to overcome prevailing crises, but exacerbating them.

Building back better makes it imperative to revive global cooperation to address the greatest challenges. The UN clearly remains at the center of these efforts, which must include action to resolve protracted conflicts and prolonged injustices – the longest on the UN agenda being the Palestine question, whereby an entire people is being deprived of the freedom, rights, dignity, equality and the peace and security that all peoples yearn for and are entitled to.

This Committee is the essence of multilateralism and the commitment to international law as the keys for resolving this conflict. The foresight of those who preceded us and established the Committee in 1975 should be recognized, for long before us they sought peaceful, diplomatic means, in a spirit of dialogue, collective responsibility and action, as the path for a just solution.

That same spirit is what is most needed today and being widely summoned to tackle other urgent global issues based on the rule of law and our common values and goals. So, we regret the dismissal and even maligning of this Committee by some – including by false accusations of bias or being anti-Israeli – denying to it the support it deserves for its positive, peaceful, multilateral mandate, as enshrined in the relevant General Assembly resolutions.

So, today we once again urge all States to support and cooperate with the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People as we seek together to realize peace. We need to mobilize collective efforts to achieve a just solution that guarantees the rights of the Palestinian people and establishes lasting Palestinian-Israeli peace and security.

The basis of that solution is reflected in the longstanding international consensus, a consensus that remains strong despite cynical attempts in recent years to undermine and dismantle it. It has been repeatedly reaffirmed in this Assembly and in the Security Council, most recently at the high-level debate of 26 January convened under the Presidency of Tunisia, with the broad calls for serious efforts to bring an end to the Israeli occupation since 1967, to achieve the two-State solution on the pre-1967 borders in accordance with international law and the relevant UN resolutions, and to realize the rights of the Palestinian people, including to self-determination and including a just solution for the Palestine refugees on the basis of General Assembly resolution 194 (III).

We have the tools to achieve these noble goals. General Assembly resolutions and Security Council resolutions over the decades, including resolution 2334 of December 2016, have set forth the terms of reference and parameters for a just solution that have global backing. What is missing is the will.

We appeal today for:

the will to learn from past mistakes and avert repeated failure;
the will to uphold the law in all circumstances and to hold Israel, the occupying Power, accountable for its flagrant and systematic violations – whether settlement colonization of our land, displacement, collective punishment and blockade of our people, or racist, discriminatory policies that amount to apartheid – with a view to ending them and the suffering caused to the Palestinian people and to salvaging the two-State solution;
and the will to implement UN resolutions, without exception or bias, for the promotion of human rights and a just peace and security.

We appeal to the international community to act. We urge you, Secretary-General, to continue your efforts to mobilize international action, including in terms of UN engagement within the Quartet and with regional and other partners, including for the convening at the earliest possible date of an international peace conference, as called for by President Abbas, to revive a credible process to justly resolve the Palestine question and realize Palestinian-Israeli peace.

We welcome the appointment of your new Special Coordinator and Special Representative, Mr. Tor Wennesland, and are ready to work with him as well to address the needs of the Palestinian people at this critical moment, in cooperation with UN agencies on the ground, and to overcome the persistent impediments to peace. We call for international support for these efforts, including urgent funding for UNRWA, to address the dire situation on the ground, alleviate hardships, and restore hope.

Excellencies,

There are those who say that the problems are too many, the obstacles too great and that now is not the time for grand initiatives for peace. Such views contradict the mandate and purpose of this Committee and indeed the purposes and principles of the UN. For those denied their freedom, rights and dignity – the essence of human existence and survival – nothing is more urgent. How can we ever say that the time is not right to protect human rights, to end conflict, to make peace?

We appeal to all to join us in working for a just solution that will allow the Palestinian people to fulfill their inalienable rights, including to self-determination and the independence of their State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, living side by side on the basis of the pre-1967 borders with Israel and all of its neighbors in peace and security, a peace that will be the true cornerstone of peace and stability in the Middle East.

In closing, I wish to again thank the Secretary-General for joining us today; to congratulate the Chair and Bureau on their re-election; and to reiterate our thanks to the Committee, as well as the Division for Palestinian Rights, for their tireless efforts in support of and solidarity with the Palestinian people; and also all the States, intergovernmental organizations and civil society groups extending their support to the Committee and solidarity to our people, looking forward to working with all of you to revive hope and make real progress towards a more just and peaceful future.

Filed Under: Mission Documents, Statements, Status of Palestine, Uncategorized Tagged With: Committee on Palestinian Rights, General Assembly

Statement of H.E. Riad Malki, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the State of Palestine before the Security Council, 26 January 2021

26 January 2021 by

Mr. President,

Allow me at the outset to congratulate Tunisia on its skilled presidency of the Security Council and to express our appreciation for the high-level convening of this open debate, as well as to wish my brother Othman Jerandi a swift recovery. I also wish the President of Mexico a swift recovery. May this year witness an end to this terrible pandemic. Let me note in this regard that the occupying Power has not provided any vaccines to the Palestinian people under occupation to this day, insisting it is under no obligation to do so.

Allow me to also thank Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov for his participation and to seize this opportunity to thank Russia for its leading role in the Quartet in the most difficult of circumstances, and President Putin for his repeated efforts to bring the parties together, as well as the Foreign Ministers of Ireland, Mr. Simon Coveney, Mexico, Mr. Marcelo Ebrard Casaubón, and Norway, Ms. Ine Eriksen Søreide, colleagues that I have worked closely with to advance peace, and the Deputy Foreign Minister of Estonia, Mr. Rein Tammsaar, for participating in this meeting.

I congratulate Mr. Tor Wennesland for assuming his functions as the UN Special Coordinator. We look forward to working with him in his new capacity to advance a just peace. I also welcome my brother Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who remains a tireless advocate of peace.

I also wish today to express our appreciation to the States that concluded their Security Council terms, Belgium, Dominican Republic, Germany, Indonesia, and South Africa, thanking them for their commitment to international law and peace, and for their support for the rights of the Palestinian people; while also expressing our congratulations to India, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico and Norway and wishing them every success as they undertake their terms on the Council.

Mr. President,

The countdown for the demise of the two-State solution is underway. Some say the time has already elapsed. It is our collective responsibility to salvage the two-State solution on the pre-1967 borders before it is too late.

Some wonder if this is the right time for peace. But the very reasons that demonstrate how difficult achieving peace is going to be, including the situation on the ground, the mistrust, the illegal unilateral actions, should prompt more, not less, international involvement, especially since we all agree that we are running out of time.

How much trust was there when the parties to the conflict met in Madrid 30 years ago? How ready were they to negotiate? How willing was then Israeli Prime Minister Shamir to make peace? How pleased were the Palestinians that the PLO could not even send its own delegation? What did the situation on the ground look like? The world decided it was time to solve this conflict and was not going to take “no” for an answer. I can tell you with certainty, without Madrid, we would not have made it to Oslo.

The momentum for peace is something we create, not something we wait for, and I know there is no lack of willingness around this table and beyond to see peace prevail.

We thus reiterate our call for a collective approach mobilizing the international community and demonstrating its resolve to achieve peace. In this context, we call for revival of the Quartet and its engagement with partners and the parties, as well as for the continued mobilization of this Security Council. We also reiterate our call for the convening of an international peace conference that can signal a turning point in this conflict, like Madrid did three decades ago, and to launch final status negotiations based on the international terms of reference and parameters. Our call for multilateral engagement is not an attempt to evade bilateral negotiations, but rather an effort to ensure their success.

Mr. President,

Does anyone here believe that Israel has really dropped its annexation plans? Or is the reality actually that it is finalizing those plans on the ground in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, as we speak, advancing over 3000 new settlement units in the last few weeks alone, accelerating demolition of Palestinian homes and the displacement of our people, with settlers’ violence reaching an all-time high, and with repeated provocations at the holy sites, especially at Al-Haram Al-Sharif?

Israel’s goal has always been the same: grabbing maximum Palestinian geography with minimum Palestinian demography. The outcome of this policy is known. Millions of Palestinians enduring oppression, discrimination and blatant segregation, denied their most basic rights and deprived of control over their land, their resources, their borders and their lives. Who would accept that? We cannot. Would any of you? The question therefore remains how to convince Israel to choose peace not annexation, or in the words of former US President Jimmy Carter, peace not apartheid.

In 2016, the Quartet stressed the urgent need for affirmative steps to reverse the negative trends on the ground in order to “prevent entrenching a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict that is incompatible with realizing the national aspirations” of the Palestinian and Israeli peoples. In response to the rapid deterioration of the situation on the ground, the Security Council adopted resolution 2334 (2016), a roadmap to salvage the two-State solution and achieve peace.

In his speech explaining why the United States did not resort to the veto, Secretary Kerry explained that the two-State solution was a Palestinian interest, an Israeli interest, a regional and international interest, but also a US interest. He stressed that the “critical decision about the future – one state or two states – is effectively being made on the ground every single day”, noting that “the status quo is leading towards one state and perpetual occupation, but most of the public either ignores it or has given up hope that anything can be done to change it”, adding that “with this passive resignation, the problem only gets worse, the risks get greater and the choices are narrowed”.

This lucid assessment about the urgency to act to salvage the two-State solution was followed by four years where the Trump administration used the United States’ might and influence to support Israel’s unlawful efforts to entrench its occupation and control, breaking with decades of US diplomacy. Even the most vulnerable, millions of Palestine refugees, were not spared as the Trump administration withdrew US funding from UNRWA seeking to bring the Agency to collapse in spite of the international consensus on its indispensable role pending a just solution. What if these considerable resources were used to advance freedom, justice and peace, not annexation and apartheid?

Mr. President,

The last four years have tested our collective resolve, yet the international consensus has endured and prevailed. The members of this Council, of the Quartet, the Munich group, and the international community as a whole stood up against annexation, reaffirmed their support for Palestinian rights, supported UNRWA, and continued to work for a just and lasting peace. Now is the time to heal and repair the damage left by the previous US administration.

President Abbas has congratulated President Biden on his election and expressed our hope for the resumption of relations and positive engagement. We look forward to the reversal of the unlawful and hostile measures undertaken by the Trump administration and to working together for peace. We welcome the decision of the new administration to rejoin the international law-based order and hope the US will play an important role in multilateral efforts for peace in the Middle East.

Mr. President,

This is not a time for passive resignation but a time for resolute action. Without such action, neither reversing negative trends on the ground, first and foremost illegal settlement activities, nor resuming meaningful final status negotiations, will be possible. The deterioration of the situation on the ground is directly linked to the attempts of one party to prejudge and dictate the outcome of negotiations, implementing annexation that would destroy any prospect for a sovereign and contiguous State of Palestine, while pretending to accept a two-State solution.

There are those who ask: what can be done that has not been tried already? But did the world truly use the toolbox available to it to end this occupation and conflict?

How does the world deal with other conflicts? Does it say that the parties shall negotiate and just wait for them to be ready and agree? Or does it find the necessary resources to push parties towards negotiations and away from unlawful unilateral actions, including by upholding third parties’ obligations? Does it only condemn violations or make sure that their cost far outweighs their benefits by creating incentives for compliance with obligations and disincentives for their breach? Does this Council in adopting its resolutions accompany them with the means to ensure their implementation as per its Charter duties, or does it offer its resolutions as mere advice for the parties to decide if they take it or not?

Since both parties say they are committed to peace, why not allow the deployment of international observers truly empowered to assess compliance? Why fear consequences for whomever breaches their legal obligations? Why not conduct final status negotiations under international auspices? Why reject the idea of binding timeframes? This is the path towards changing the dramatic reality underway in Palestine. We stand ready to do our part and will continue fulfilling our obligations.

Mr. President,

An entire nation is yearning for freedom and its calls must be answered. We do not ask for anything more than what the UN Charter prescribed for all peoples, nor will we accept anything less. We cannot accept a future of walls and blockades, humiliation and subjugation. We will spare no effort in advancing an independent, sovereign, viable, contiguous and democratic State of Palestine on the pre-1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. We will do by resorting to peaceful means alone, even in the most challenging of circumstances.

While we pursue our long journey to freedom and peace, we call for immediate protection for our people, who are equally entitled to security, until such time where we can ensure their protection as a sovereign State.

President Abbas has issued a decree calling for Palestinian legislative and presidential elections, as well as for the Palestinian National Council. This is an integral part of the efforts to resume our democratic life and to achieve national reconciliation and unity. We thank all those who are supporting these efforts and ask for international support and assistance to ensure the integrity of these elections, including by helping to avert and remove any Israeli obstacles to their conduct, notably in East Jerusalem, as well as respect for the outcome.

In this period of electoral campaigns, there are those who, in trying to secure votes, remain committed to international law, the two-State solution and peaceful means, and those who instead announce settlements, advance annexation and persist in their provocations. May people not be duped by the ills of demagogy, supremacy and domination and rather choose the path of equal rights, mutual respect and shared dignity. With your help, may our future be one of freedom, security and prosperity for all. A future of peace, not apartheid. Thank you.

Filed Under: Security Council, Statements, Uncategorized Tagged With: security council

22 January 2021 – Illegal Israeli Settlement Colonization

22 January 2021 by

Excellency,

I must again draw your attention to the critical situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, due to the escalating illegal policies and practices of Israel, the occupying Power, against the Palestinian people.

As detailed in previous letters, Israel’s evident annexation intentions have reached new heights of violations with the Israeli Prime Minister announcing plans for further settlement construction and expansion on our occupied land. In addition to the 800 settlement units announced last week, Israel has issued tenders for 2,500 illegal units, with more than 450 to be built in settlements in Occupied East Jerusalem, constituting yet another blatant breach of international law and UN resolutions.

Such actions must be countered as a matter of obligation under international law and UN resolutions, but also because they continue to obstruct the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, an erga omnes right; to shred the Palestinian State’s contiguity; and to destroy the viability of the two-State solution on the pre-1967 borders as envisaged by the international consensus.

This cycle of settlement expansion and encroachment is not new to the Palestinian people, as year after year, Israel steals more of their land and forcibly displaces more Palestinian families, while disguising itself as a partner for peace. According to the Israeli advocacy group Peace Now, Israel advanced construction of over 12,000 settlement units in 2020 alone, the highest number in a single year since the group began recording statistics in 2012, construction that would illegally transfer hundreds of thousands more Israeli settlers to Occupied Palestine. How do such violations and destructive actions signal any intent for peace?

The international community must explicitly demand once again that Israel immediately cease all of its illegal settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. Israel must be abide by its legal obligations, including under the 4^th Geneva Convention, as reaffirmed in Security Council resolution 2334 (2016), or bear the consequences of its rogue behavior that has deliberately prolonged oppression and injustice and undermined the drive for peace and security.

Demolitions and forced evictions also continue apace as a central tool of this illegal occupation and its settlement colonization. UN OCHA reports that in 2020, Israeli occupation forces displaced nearly one thousand Palestinians, almost half of them children, as a result of demolition of Palestinian homes and forced evictions. As documented by OCHA, “The cumulative number of structures demolished or seized in 2020 (849) across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the number of Palestinians displaced as a result (996), are the largest since 2016. The number of donor-funded aid structures targeted in 2020 (156) is also the highest since 2016.”

On 14 January, a Palestinian family in East Jerusalem had to self-demolish their home under pressure from the occupation’s demolition orders and threats. Abu Hamad, the homeowner, said that he had to demolish his home, built 10 years ago and inhabited by seven family members, and to remove the rubble to avoid the excessive costs and fines if demolished by the occupation authorities, who in a depraved system not only illegally and traumatically deprive people of their homes, but cruelly impose financial loss on them for those demolitions.

On 17 January, Israeli occupation forces also issued demolition orders to a primary school and a mosque in Masafer Yatta, south of Al-Khalil (Hebron). The school, which is funded by the European Union, expects to enroll 50 students in three marginalized Palestinian communities. On the same day, a separate demolition order was taking place in Anin, west of Jenin, where Israeli occupation forces bulldozed more than ten vendor stalls, affecting the livelihoods of many vulnerable families. On 18 January, occupation forces issued demolition orders to eight Palestinian families in the village of Duma, south of Nablus, whose homes were built to accommodate the village’s growing population.

It is widely known that Palestinian structures continue to be demolished and seized under the pretext of lacking occupation-issued building permits, which are nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain. According to the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence, Israel has rejected nearly 99 percent of Palestinian building permit applications over the years. Whether it’s a home, school, house of worship, health center, or a donor-funded project, the occupation does not discriminate in its demolition policy as the objective is explicit: to uproot Palestinians from their lands and replaced them by fanatic Israeli settlers in ever-expanding and encroaching settlements.

The violence and harassment of those settlers against the Palestinian civilian population also persist unabated. On 17 January, settler mobs from the illegal settlements of “Eli” and “Shilo” attacked Palestinians near the village of Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya, damaging homes and properties. As usual, the attack occurred in full sight of Israeli soldiers who stood by as the settlers carried on with their State-backed violence, proving once again that accountability is the exception, not the rule, when it relates to the occupation.

Even in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic, Israeli attacks and military raids have escalated. In a single night, Israeli occupation forces conducted 17 military raids across the West Bank, and arrested 41 Palestinians. Many of those arrested take part in weekly demonstrations against their lands being confiscated for the construction of illegal settlements and outposts, revealing the extent to which Israel rejects any form of civilian protest to its illegal occupation.

Further disregarding its legal obligations as an occupying Power, Israel’s exploitation of the pandemic is evident through its discriminatory vaccination campaign. Israeli and international human rights groups have criticized Israel’s vaccination campaign, pointing to the fact that hundreds of thousands of illegal settlers have clear access to the vaccine, while the millions of Palestinians living under its 53-year belligerent occupation are excluded, further exposing the occupation’s institutionalized discrimination in the West Bank and Gaza.

On 18 January, the World Health Organization office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory raised a number of public health concerns over Israel’s unequal distribution and access to vaccines. While Israel boasts about its vaccination campaign and success in acquiring millions of doses, its total disregard for international law vis-à-vis obligations must be given due and urgent attention. Israel must be demanded to respect its legal obligations. Article 56 of the 4^th Geneva Convention specifically stipulates that an occupier has the duty of ensuring “the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics.”

In this regard, we draw urgent attention to the plight of Palestinian prisoners, including children, who are being detained in occupation jails in the time of pandemic. On 16 January, Abdul Muizz Al-Jubeh, age 59, was transferred to a medical center due to complications resulting from contracting the coronavirus. On 21 January, Fo’ad Al-Shobaki, the eldest Palestinian political prisoner in occupation jails, contracted the virus after coming into contact with an Israeli prison guard. Like many Palestinian prisoners, Mr. Al-Shobaki has an intensive medical history, including prostate cancer and heart disease. Israel must heed the international community’s call and release vulnerable prisoners, particularly women, children, older persons and those with pre-existing medical conditions, and must release administrative detainees being held in Israeli prisons.

It is clear that the occupying Power has intensified its attacks and violations in recent weeks in preparation for yet another round of elections. Unfortunately, the current Israeli political landscape offers little to no hope for respite as officials and candidates cynically compete over who can do more harm to the Palestinian people and two-State solution. Impunity is delivered to the occupation through international inaction, resulting in Israel advancing its colonial project at the expense of Palestinian rights and deepening hardships. The cycle of violations suffered by the Palestinian people continues because Israel’s preference to maintain the status quo, or worse, has not been met with international action aimed to end the occupation and injustice.

As Newton’s third law of motion states, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Likewise, the international community is obligated to hold Israel accountable through tangible action. The Security Council in specific bears Charter and moral duties and must implement its own resolutions to this end, including resolution 2334 (2016). Only such responsible action can help to end one of the gravest injustices of our time. The Palestinian people look to the Council, General Assembly and international community as a whole to give them hope in this new year by joining together to confront the harsh reality we face with concerted action to uphold the rule of law to protect human rights and ensure justice, the foundations of a just peace and security between Palestine and Israel.

Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Dr. Riyad Mansour

Minister, Permanent Observer

Filed Under: Identical Letters, Mission Documents, Uncategorized Tagged With: Identical Letters, Jerusalem, settlements

13 January 2021 – Israeli Violations and the Need for Accountability

13 January 2021 by

Excellency,

In the absence of accountability, the systematic, deliberate, and provocative expansion of the occupying Power’s settlements in our land has regrettably carried into 2021. Yesterday, the Israeli Prime Minister announced plans for yet another 800 settlement units in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, shamefully boasting: “I am pleased to announce that we will build 800 new apartments in Judea & Samaria, including in Nofei Nehemiah & Tel Menashe, the late Esther Horgan’s community. We are here to stay. We continue to build the Land of Israel!”

Israeli occupation authorities also recently approved new settlement plans to seize more than 1,000 dunums of privately-owned Palestinian land in Qalqilya in the northern West Bank for settlement construction and expansion. As Israel enters yet another round of elections, the cynical connection between this grave breach of international law and the pandering for votes by Israeli politicians is patently clear. In Israel’s so-called “democracy”, settler colonialism and military occupation are apparently the keys for political victories.

In fact, although Israel allegedly “suspended” its de jure annexation scheme, its de facto annexation project continues unabated in grave breach of the law. Measures to acquire more Palestinian territory by force, home demolitions, forced displacement of Palestinian civilians, and other blatant violations of human rights and international law are being taken daily in plain sight. Undeterred, Israel is also seizing more Palestinian land for settler-only highways, tunnels, and overpasses to connect illegal settlements, while further fragmenting Palestinian cities, towns, and villages.

With the expansion of settlements of course has come expansion of the illegal settler population, which has grown four times faster than Israel’s population in less than three decades. The international community must realize that the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, is being heavily and aggressively altered in the absence of accountability for such illegal measures.

We reiterate that whether colonization and annexation are implemented partially or totally, gradually or en toto, de facto or de jure, the international community is obligated to respond with serious, tangible action based on international law and the relevant UN resolutions, including Security Council resolution 2334 (2016). Only consequences can bring a halt to such illegal and destructive behavior.

This includes the inhumane demolition of homes by which Palestinian civilians continue to be rendered homeless, even in a time of pandemic. Contravening the WHO’s guidance and health recommendations, such as social distancing and staying at home, and in grave breach of international humanitarian law, Israel demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes and displaced hundreds of Palestinians throughout Occupied Palestine, with East Jerusalem being a prime target, since the pandemic began.

In 2020 alone, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that Israeli occupation forces demolished 145 structures, including two donor-funded structures in East Jerusalem, displacing 361 Palestinians, including women and children. One week into 2021, OCHA reports that Israel has already demolished 22 structures in East Jerusalem, including four donor-funded structures, displacing 30 Palestinians, including women and children.

Occupying forces also continue to harass, intimidate and violently attack Palestinian civilians in attempts to drive them from their land. On 7 January, Israeli soldiers surrounded and invaded the village of Al-Mughayir, near Ramallah, banning its residents from entering and exiting. The village has been frequently attacked by occupation forces and colonial settlers, with much of the village’s land facing threat of confiscation to facilitate the expansion of nearby illegal settlements.

On the same day, Israeli occupation forces demolished eight residential structures in Beit Iksa, near Jerusalem, under the pretext of construction without a permit, which Palestinians have virtually no chance of obtaining from occupation authorities. According to the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence, Israel has rejected nearly 99 percent of Palestinian building permit applications over the years, stunting Palestinian development and housing needs while at the same supporting and serving the expansion of its illegal colonial settlements.

In addition to punitive home demolitions, holy sites and houses of worship remain in the crosshairs of Israel’s illegal policies and practices. Recent Israeli excavations near the Buraq Wall, also known as the Western Wall, further expose Israel’s provocations and illegal measures affecting Al-Haram Al-Sharif and the entire Old City through its ongoing Judaization projects and attempts to erase the City’s Muslim, Christian and Arab character and identity. Not only do such provocative actions violate international law and UN resolutions, they further inflame religious sensitivities and risk further destabilizing an already volatile and fragile situation.

Ranging from home demolitions to night raids, and occupation-backed settler violence to forced displacement, the occupying Power has intensified its repressive measures against Palestinian civilians during the pandemic. With the international community focused on overcoming COVID-19 and its severe impact on peoples, societies and economies everywhere, the occupation blatantly exploits the situation, reaffirming not only Israel’s rejection of international law, but also its callous disregard for the challenges collectively facing our world. Instead Israel repeatedly proves that it prefers to pursue its narrow, illegal self-interest to the grave detriment of the rights of the Palestinian people, the stability of our region, and the viability of international law globally.

Rejecting recent attempts to undermine international law and multilateralism, it is the Security Council’s duty to ensure that the law is safeguarded and applied. Continued inaction is politically dangerous and morally unacceptable. Israel must be demanded to cease its violations or bear the consequences. It is Israel that is in the wrong, not the Council for upholding its duties.

Moreover, Israel must be reminded of its legal obligations to ensure the health and safety of all civilians under its occupation, without discrimination, including access to proper medical care for Palestinian detainees and prisoners, including those afflicted with COVID-19, who face deliberate medical negligence as a cruel form of punishment. In this regard, we must refer to the tragic death of a young Palestinian man, 20-year old Mohammed Ayed Salaheldin, who had been imprisoned by Israel and died this week of cancer just months following his recent release. Moreover, to date, it has been reported that at least 191 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel have contracted the COVID-19 virus, that several are in serious condition, and that Israel continues to inoculate prison authorities while denying the vaccine to Palestinians they are holding captive. We reiterate our appeal to the international community to give this matter urgent attention and to act to ensure respect for obligations to save lives and to pursue immediate accountability in case of continued violations.

The impact of the pandemic has also made more dire the situation in the Gaza Strip, where the health care system has been crippled by Israel’s 13-year blockade and repeated military aggressions. That Israel maintains full control over Gaza’s crossings and borders, as well as airspace and maritime zones, is without question, imposing on it clear legal obligations as the occupying Power, including to ensure access to essential medicines and supplies. The disrespect for these obligations is striking as we witness Israel boasting about its vaccination campaign even as it excludes Palestinians living under Israeli occupation while providing it to its settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. As stated on 6 January by, Amnesty International as “millions of Palestinians living under Israeli control in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will receive no vaccine or have to wait much longer – there could hardly be a better illustration of how Israeli lives are valued above Palestinian ones.”

Israel must be demanded to respect its legal obligations and specifically as proscribed by the Fourth Geneva Convention. Article 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention specifically stipulates that an occupier has the duty of ensuring “the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics.”

Against a backdrop of inaction, Israel’s ongoing crimes and violations prove that the occupying Power has no regard for the well-being of the Palestinian civilian population under its control, no respect for international law, and no intentions whatsoever to actualize the two-State solution on the 1967 lines in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions, including Security Council resolution 2334 (2016). While Israel chooses occupation and oppression over peace and justice, the international community must choose responsibility and accountability. The Security Council in specific must be faithful to its principles by upholding its Charter duties to end this grave injustice and justly and finally end this illegal occupation and resolve this conflict. Continued inaction will reward immoral violators whose goal is to destroy any chance of a just peace.

Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Dr. Riyad Mansour

Minister, Permanent Observer

Filed Under: Identical Letters, Mission Documents Tagged With: Identical Letters

5 January 2021 – Israeli Human Rights Abuses and Violations

05 January 2021 by

Excellency,

In light of recent developments, I am compelled to once again draw your attention to the critical situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, due to the ongoing and escalating illegal policies and practices of Israel, the occupying Power.

For the Palestinian people, this new year, as every year, has begun with grave violations of international law and human rights abuses perpetrated by the occupying Power as its ruthlessly entrenches its control over Palestinian land and Palestinian lives through brutal and exploitative measures, including in this time of heightened vulnerability caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Today, Israeli forces shot and killed another young Palestinian man, ‘Ahed Ikhlil, age 25, from the town of Beit Ummar in the Occupied West Bank. This killing was preceded on 2 January by the shooting of Haron Abu Aram, age 24, at close range by Israeli occupation forces in Masafer Yatta. This young man is now permanently disabled, paralyzed from the neck down, making him the latest victim of Israeli impunity. In an attempt to justify the attack, Israeli occupation authorities claim the incident turned violent. However, video footage proves otherwise, as Abu Aram posed no threat and lay motionless on the ground after being attacked for trying to defend his land and his property, including a generator for his family’s home, which the Israeli soldiers were trying to confiscate.

Like many Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, Abu Aram was in the process of rebuilding his family’s home, which was recently demolished under the pretext of construction without a permit. Yet, as highlighted repeatedly by Special Coordinator Nickolay Mladenov, Israel, violating its Fourth Geneva Conventions obligations, makes it nearly impossible for Palestinians to obtain such permits, as it aims to deliberately restrict Palestinian development and dispossess Palestinian families, creating a coercive environment impairing their well-being and livelihoods and forcing them to leave their land.

For all of these systematic abuses and violations, Israel, the occupying Power, must be held accountable and the perpetrators be brought to justice. The absence of accountability has clearly only emboldened such illegal behavior, with near-daily demolition orders issued and threats made against Palestinian families. In fact, according to OCHA, the year 2020 witnessed the highest number of demolitions of Palestinian homes and structures by the Israeli occupation forces since the documentation of this practice began and all indications are that Israel is set to continue this illegal, destructive practice if not deterred.

In 2020, exploiting the international community’s inaction, Israel also continued its violent arrest and detention campaign in Occupied Palestine. In the course of just one year, the Israeli occupying forces detained 4,636 Palestinians, including 543 minors under the age of 18 and 128 women. Israel has also persisted with its policy of administrative detention, the most arbitrary form of detention by the Israeli military holds Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial, often tortured and subjected to other forms of ill-treatment and human rights violations. 380 Palestinians are currently being administratively detained by Israel without charge, among them children and women.

Governments, human rights groups, and other international organizations have called for the release of these Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons without being charged, tried, or convicted. As expected, such calls are blatantly ignored by Israel, adding more to the massive record of documented violations perpetrated daily against the Palestinian people under its 53-year belligerent occupation.

Massive arrest campaigns and raids by the occupying Power are daily occurrences throughout Occupied Palestine, including East Jerusalem, with utter disregard for the state of emergency in the West Bank due to the pandemic. In just one example, while conducting campaigns and raids on New Year’s Eve, on 31 December, Israeli occupation forces violently stormed homes and damaged properties, and arrested 16 Palestinians, including four minors.

Hundreds of Palestinians being held captive in Israeli prisons also suffer from critical illnesses, among them many who are chronically ill. It is known that at least 10 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, including 81-year-old Fouad Shoubaki, the oldest prisoner, have cancer and are in need of special medical treatment. From Israel’s medical negligence of prisoners to the inhumane practice of necroviolence by which the occupying Power withholds the bodies of Palestinians it has murdered, international law obligations continue to be trampled and the Palestinian people pay the ultimate price for such impunity and lack of accountability, deprived of their most basic human rights and fundamental human dignity.

We appeal to the international community to address Israel’s collective violence and dehumanizing practices against the living and deceased, in order to ensure respect for international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, by the occupying Power. Legal obligations are just that – obligatory, without exception – and cannot be disregarded and violated without consequence.

In this regard, it is no coincidence that Israel has begun the new year with plans to seize more Palestinian land and expand its illegal settlements. Undeterred as the international community once again failed in the past year to follow up its demands for a cessation of Israel’s colonization and annexation schemes with action, the occupying Power continues apace with such illegal measures. In fact, it seems to even be encouraged to do so as international partners fawn over recent agreements signed between Israel and Arab States while ignoring the reality of what is being perpetrated on the ground in Occupied Palestine, including East Jerusalem, on a daily basis. That reality exposes Israel’s colonial agenda as clearly as ever: more Palestinian land without the people.

On 3 January, Israeli occupation authorities approved plans to seize more large tracts of Palestinian land in the Bethlehem area to facilitate the expansion of its illegal settlement network while further fragmenting Palestinian cities, towns, and villages. These plans are part and parcel of Israel’s plans to consolidate a ring of illegal settlements between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, causing irreversible damage to the contiguity of the State of Palestine and the viability of the two-State solution on the pre-1967 borders.

Clearing the area of Palestinian civilians and properties before seizure of the land continues to be the usual Israeli practice as it systematically and gradually swallows up the Palestinian land, dunum by dunum. More Palestinian homes, as well as internationally-funded humanitarian structures, have thus continued to be demolished, exacerbating the already severe crisis caused by the pandemic. In just one recent incident, on 29 December, Israeli occupation forces demolished Palestinian homes and structures in Yatta, south of Al-Khalil (Hebron), and Nweimeh, south of Jericho. The following day, Israeli occupation forces uprooted dozens of olive trees and razed large tracts of privately-owned land in the village of Jab’a, near Bethlehem.

Extremist Israeli settlers have continued their violent rampages, also uprooting and burning trees and agricultural crops, destroying the livelihoods of more Palestinian families, who continue to live under their constant threats, harassment and vulnerable to their violence. At the same time, extremist and fanatic Israeli settlers continue their dangerous incitement and attacks on holy sites, particularly Al-Aqsa Mosque at Al-Haram Al-Sharif.

The international community must explicitly demand once again that Israel immediately cease all of its illegal settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. Settlement activities constitute a flagrant violation of international law amounting to grave breaches, i.e. war crimes. Israel must be demanded to abide by its legal obligations, including under the Fourth Geneva Convention, as reaffirmed in Security Council resolution 2334 (2016), or suffer the consequences of its rogue behavior. All perpetrators of crimes against the Palestinian people, whether Israeli government or military officials or settlers illegally transferred to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, must be held accountable to the full extent of the law, including international criminal law as codified in the Rome Statute.

Absent accountability, Israel’s over 53-year occupation is entrenching by the minute. Those familiar with Israel’s conduct know that a new year will not change its illegal behavior. As long as impunity is coupled with the lack of accountability, Israel will remain shielded while international law, including legislation by the Security Council, are trampled and undermined. The negative, dangerous and dark trends created by this illegal occupation can only be reversed through accountability that upholds international law and the relevant UN resolutions. The time for mandated action is more indispensable than ever; it is the only hope to reverse course and salvage the prospects for a solution that ensures that justice, freedom, equality, dignity and peace prevail. The implementation of Security Council resolutions and applicability of international law will depend on whether the Council seizes the opportunity to put an end to Israel’s crimes and violations, insisting on upholding the Charter without exception and fulfilling its responsibilities to confront injustice wherever it may occur.

This letter is in follow-up to our 699 letters regarding the ongoing crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, which constitutes the territory of the State of Palestine. These letters, dated from 29 September 2000 (A/55/432-S/2000/921) to 29 December 2020 (A/ES-10/xxx-S/2020/xxx) constitute a basic record of the crimes being committed by Israel, the occupying Power, against the Palestinian people since September 2000. For all of these war crimes, acts of State terrorism and systematic human rights violations being committed against the Palestinian people, Israel, the occupying Power, must be held accountable and the perpetrators must be brought to justice.

Please accept, Excellency, the assurances of my highest consideration.

Dr. Riyad Mansour

Minister, Permanent Observer

Filed Under: About Palestine, Identical Letters, Mission Documents Tagged With: Identical Letters

Archives for 2021

5 February 2021 – Israeli Settlement Activities and Human Rights Abuses

25 February 2021 – Israeli Colonization and Human Rights Abuses against the Palestinian people

16 February 2021 – Illegal Colonization and Human Rights Abuses by Israel

4 February 2021 – Illegal Israeli Settlement Colonization

4 February 2021 – Remarks by H.E. Minister Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, at the first annual meeting of the United Nations Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People

Statement of H.E. Riad Malki, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the State of Palestine before the Security Council, 26 January 2021

22 January 2021 – Illegal Israeli Settlement Colonization

13 January 2021 – Israeli Violations and the Need for Accountability

5 January 2021 – Israeli Human Rights Abuses and Violations

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