28 September 2022 – Murders of Palestinian Civilians and Escalating Israeli Military Raids

Excellency,

Israeli occupying forces (IOF), including armed settler militias, continue to kill and injure Palestinian civilians, to damage and destroy civilian properties, and to violate the sanctity of holy sites, particularly Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif in ongoing attacks, which are deliberate and systematic in their nature.

While the Security Council’s negligence of the Palestinian plight under Israel’s illegal colonial occupation and apartheid regime continues, the occupying Power’s impunity is emboldened in full confidence that there will be no consequences for its barbaric violence and crimes and the situation becomes ever more volatile. Palestinian civilians, including children, are paying with their lives for this negligence.

In yet another large-scale Israeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp today, four Palestinians were killed and 44 other Palestinians were injured, many in critical condition after being shot by live ammunition. The four young men murdered by the IOF were Abed Fathi Hazem, whose brother of Raad was killed by IOF in April, Mohammad Mahmoud Elwaneh, Ahmad Nathmi Alawneh, and Mohammad Abu Naaseh.

These casualties follow Israeli raids that have killed several other Palestinians in the recent period, including, inter alia, the killing of another young Palestinian man, Sa’ed al-Kuni, by IOF on 25 September; the killing on 24 September of Mohammed Ali Abu Kafia, a schoolteacher and father of 3 children, when IOF opened fire on him when he lost control of his vehicle near the village of Jit west of Nablus; the killing of Hamada Mustafa Abu Jelda, who died on 11 September of wounds sustained from an earlier Israeli raid on the Jenin camp; and the shooting and killing of a Palestinian child, Haitham Mubakar, age 17, near the village of Beitin, east of Ramallah.

The lives of their families have been shattered, as has happened to so many families before them; and life in the Jenin refugee camp – as in Nablus, Jerusalem, Al-Khalil (Hebron) and other Palestinian cities and camps at a time that should be an optimistic and tranquil start of the school year for children – is in turmoil, marred by deep grief at these killings and outrage at constant Israeli military assaults and settler terror against Palestinian civilians.

The shoot-to-kill policy underlying all of these killings expose Israel’s cruel disregard for Palestinian life in specific and the sanctity of human life in particular. Provoking the situation further, IOF continued the aggression after the Jenin raid today, attacking Palestinian protesters in various areas in the occupied West Bank with bullets, tear gas and stun grenades, conveying a loud message that Israel will violently crackdown any resistance to its vicious occupation. This has simultaneously emboldened extremist settler militias to carry on with their rampages, with at least 21 Palestinians injured just today by settler attacks in the village of Madama near Nablus.

What is apparent across the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, is that, while on the world stage, the Israeli Prime Minister offers platitudes about peace, in reality the occupying Power has not for one minute ceased its persecution of the Palestinian people or its colonization of their land. On the contrary, Israel is intensifying its subjugation of our people, including rabid violence and incitement by its settlers, and is entrenching its occupation, including via nonstop construction of settlements, in grave breach of international law and contempt of the international community’s standing demand for a halt to such illegal policies and practices, as repeatedly legislated by the General Assembly and Security Council, including in resolution 2334 (2016).

Israel is violating every single resolution and every single one of its obligations as an occupying Power under the Fourth Geneva Convention, fully confident that the ongoing international paralysis on the Palestine question, especially in the Security Council, guarantees its continued evasion of accountability. In fact, as recently reported, the number of Palestinian casualties in the occupied West Bank this year caused by IOF and settlers is at the highest level since the UN began recording fatalities in 2005, with no accountability for a single killing. This violent impunity, and the dangerous destabilization it is causing, require immediate attention and action.

Moreover, we must draw attention to the escalating attacks by Israeli settlers, accompanied by IOF, on Al-Haram Al-Sharif. Extremist Jewish settlers continue to break into Al-Aqsa Mosque and to violate the historic and legal status quo at this holy site as a place solely for Muslim worship. These extremist groups are exploiting the Jewish holy days to provoke and incite in a most violent, reckless manner that risks an uncontrollable conflagration.

Such actions should be condemned and action taken to immediately halt them. Israel, the occupying Power, must be demanded to unequivocally respect the historic and legal status quo at the holy sites, Jordan’s custodianship of the holy sites in Jerusalem and the authority of the Islamic Waqf, and the numerous relevant UN resolutions concerning Jerusalem and the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a whole. International law strictly prohibits the occupying Power from altering the demography, character, status and identity of the occupied territory and Israel must be held accountable for all its deviations and violations.

In light of all the above, we are forced to reiterate: What is being done to the Palestinian people is inhumane and unlawful, amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the crime of apartheid, as our people are being hunted down and killed by the Israeli occupying forces (IOF), arbitrarily detained and jailed, dispossessed of their homes and lands, denied every human right simply because of who they are – Palestinians, not Jews – and for refusing to submit to Israel’s foreign colonial occupation and demanding their freedom like every other human being on earth is entitled to.

Faced with this appalling reality and dangerous deterioration of the situation, upholding international law and ensuring accountability must be a priority for the international community for it is the linchpin to stopping this downward spiral, saving human lives and charting a viable course for justice and a lasting peace that ensures the realization of the rights of the Palestinian people, including foremost to self-determination, and brings to fruition the two-State solution on the pre-1967 lines long enshrined in UN resolutions.

The Security Council in particular has clear responsibilities and cannot continue to shirk them while innocent civilians are being killed and terrorized and an entire nation is being deprived of its independence and peace and security. We thus call once again on the Council to act forthwith to implement its resolutions towards bringing an end to this illegal colonial occupation and apartheid regime and an end to this historic injustice.

This letter is in follow-up to our 765 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 31 August 2022 (A/ES-10/912–S/2022/662) 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 10th 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

6 August 2021 – Killings and Ethnic Cleansing by the Israeli Occupation

Excellency,

Recent disturbing developments compel me to once again draw attention to the critical situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, as a result of ongoing and escalating illegal policies and practices of Israel, the occupying Power. While we continue to warn about the intensity of Israeli attacks and human rights violations being perpetrated against the Palestinian people, Israel’s impunity is only further emboldened by the lack of accountability.

All of this is regrettably happening with the full knowledge of the international community, which is witnessing these grave crimes, including the killing of innocent children, women and men, all in the name of entrenching the longest belligerent occupation in modern history. Yet, the international community remains paralyzed despite repeated appeals by many governments, parliaments, civil society and peoples of conscience across the world to bring an end to this injustice, enabling Israel’s impunity to mutate at an alarming rate as international law and human lives are trampled and the prospects for a just peace are destroyed.

As detailed in previous letters, the scale of coordinated violations by Israeli occupation forces (IOF) and extremist Israeli settlers is reaching unprecedented levels, resulting in the cold-blooded killing of Palestinian civilians and the mass dispossession of our people as the Israeli government presses ahead with its illegal colonization enterprise. The international community must act with urgency to bring a halt to these crimes through accountability and real justice. Failure to do so will invalidate the Security Council’s credibility and defy the will of the international community with far-reaching consequences.

Today, 6 August, yet another innocent Palestinian man was killed by the IOF, which once again responded with lethal force to the legitimate civilian protests against Israeli colonization schemes in the village of Beita. Emad Ali Dwaikat, age 37, was shot dead by the IOF as he protested alongside other villagers from Beita trying to save their land from confiscation and settlement. Emad was the father of four young children, four daughters who have now been orphaned by this criminal occupation, devastating his family and forever altering their lives.

On 28 July, IOF fatally shot another Palestinian child in Beit Ummar, near Al-Khalil (Hebron). The child, Mohammad al-Alami, age 11, was killed while returning from shopping groceries with his father. IOF fired more than a dozen bullets at their vehicle, fatally shooting the 11-year-old boy in the chest soaking with blood the bundle of bread his father had bought for the family. Mohammed was the 11th Palestinian child to be killed by Israel in the occupied West Bank in 2021. As stressed by Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP), “Israeli forces routinely unlawfully kill Palestinian children with impunity, resorting to intentional lethal force in situations where children pose no threat.”

Israel’s impunity knowns no limits. The following day, IOF did not allow the al-Alami family to bury Mohammad in dignity, but rather intensified their military presence in Beit Ummar and attacked Mohammad’s funeral procession with the firing of live ammunition. Palestinian families are unable to bury their loved ones in peace as the barbarity of Israel’s occupation is designed to inflict unimaginable suffering on every aspect of Palestinian life, even the most sacred and solemn rituals of humankind. As a result of the attack on the funeral, another young Palestinian man, Shawkat Awad, age 20, was killed by gunshots to the head and stomach. Awad is the fourth Palestinian to be killed in the occupied West Bank last week alone.

On 24 July, IOF shot and killed a 17-year-old boy, Mohammad al-Tamimi, in Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah, after a convoy of Israeli military vehicles stormed the village. The boy did not pose any threat to the heavily armed Israeli soldiers who have become accustomed to indiscriminately firing at and killing Palestinians with zero consequences. According to DCIP, IOF shot Mohammad with live ammunition in his back as the bullet exited through his abdomen, tearing a large hole and exposing his intestines.

On 26 July, Yousef Nawaf Mhareb, age 17, succumbed to the injuries after being in the neck shot by live Israeli military fire, causing severe damage to his spinal cord. Yousef remained unconscious in an intensive care unit for 74 days before succumbing to his wounds. Since the beginning of 2021, a total of 78 Palestinian children have been killed by Israel throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.

Israel’s 54-year occupation is inflicting mass psychosocial trauma on Palestinian children and youth, severely impacting their well-being and mental health as child rights are gravely violated without consequence and children are left without protection. Palestinian children, like all children throughout the world, have the right to live a safe, secure and peaceful childhood. Israel’s routine killing of Palestinian children should remind the international community, particularly the Security Council, that children are protected under the 4th Geneva Convention and other provisions of international law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is a signatory. We call on the international community to act immediately to bring an end to the occupation’s state-sponsored killing of Palestinian children, for which Israel must be fully held accountable.

In a desperate attempt to conceal the cold-blooded killings of Palestinian children in recent weeks and undermine advocacy for protection of Palestinian children, IOF actually raided DCIP headquarters in Al-Bireh on 29 July. In a video widely shared on news networks and social media, more than a dozen Israeli soldiers ransacked the office and confiscated computers, hard drives, and files related to Palestinian child detainees represented by DCIP in Israeli military courts. This blatant crackdown is part of Israel’s campaign to silence NGOs such as DCIP from exposing the cruel reality that Palestinian children face under military occupation.

Israel’s latest crackdown is clearly designed to make the work of NGOs and journalism increasingly difficult as both fields face constant attacks and operational restrictions in violation of international humanitarian law. For instance, since the start of the year, IOF destroyed, raided, and ransacked 11 media offices and printing presses throughout Occupied Palestine. Despite repeated attempts to conceal the truth, such attacks only further highlight this illegal occupation’s record of grave crimes and violations.

Palestinian families also remain at imminent risk of forced expulsion and mass dispossession due to Israel’s unlawful and inhumane policies of forcibly removing Palestinians from their land and homes and replacing them with Jewish settlers, particularly in and around Jerusalem. In this regard, we must again draw urgent attention the ongoing dispossession campaigns in the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem.

To avoid opposing the state-backed settler groups spearheading the displacement campaign due to unfounded claims, the Israeli supreme court delayed a “verdict” on the forced expulsion of four Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah and offered the families an unjust “compromise”, seeking to avoid international censure and appease the state-backed “Nahalat Shimon” and “Ateret Cohanim” settler groups and their baseless claims.

As a result of the court’s inconclusiveness over the unfounded claims, the judges proposed a settlement whereby Palestinian families would be given so-called “protected tenancy” status on the condition that they would recognize “Nahalat Shimon’s” ownership over the land and pay rental fees to the settler group as their landlords. This unjust scenario is detached from reality and will never be acceptable as these families were uprooted from their homes in 1948 and face a second Nakba driven by these nefarious settler groups who are leading a drive to force Palestinians from their homes and specifically in the city of Jerusalem.

As repeatedly stressed by Israeli NGO Ir Amim, “Although successive Israeli governments have framed these cases as standard property disputes, they are rather part and parcel of a coordinated and systematic campaign aimed at uprooting Palestinian families and supplanting them with settlers to create Israeli enclaves in the heart of Palestinian neighborhoods.”

The Palestinian people are compelled to ask; how can a court with absolutely no jurisdiction in occupied territory be reasoned with? How can a decision by a court with close ties to state-backed settler groups be considered sensible? How can a panel of judges who live in illegal settlements be a voice of reason?

This is the devastating reality for hundreds of Palestinian families in Jerusalem who do not have a fighting chance in Israeli courts from the beginning due to the institutionalized discrimination and systematic oppression akin only to apartheid. As Mohammed al-Kurd of Sheikh Jarrah, whose family is under threat of expulsion from their home, stated after the hearing: “The judges are colonizers … the entire regime was built on the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the rubble of our stolen land.”

In Silwan, Israel also continues to intensify its judiciary intimidation and attacks on Palestinian families in the Batan al-Hawa neighborhood. According to Ir Amim, a total of 85 Palestinian families, numbering 700 individuals, are at risk of large-scale displacement by the “Ateret Cohanim” settler group. To justify the dispossession in Silwan, Israel says it will replace hundreds of Palestinian homes with an illegal settlement called “Shimon Hatzadik”, along with a religious theme park for settlers under the name “King David Park.” It is the height of cruelty and absurdity that, while entire Palestinian families face the risk of being uprooted from their homes and their lives torn apart, Israel and settler groups coordinate schemes to expedite and solidify the colonial apartheid in occupied East Jerusalem for tourism and entertainment.

Such campaigns of forced displacement and mass dispossession, which promote and perpetuate the perceived supremacy and privilege of one group over another, a blatantly discriminatory and apartheid practice, constitute grave breaches of international law 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 again 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”.

Regrettably, international inaction only further fuel Israel’s impunity at the cost of human lives, both in the present and the future. The number of children killed by Israel this year alone should have sparked outrage within the Security Council. Israel’s attempts to normalize its occupation and killing of Palestinian children, even going so far as to claim the children are responsible for their own deaths, should not be tolerated or in any way excused. The existence of an entire nation of people and the very foundations of international law and the credibility of the Security Council, General Assembly and United Nations as a whole depend on action and accountability. The time to act is long overdue. It is time to stop rewarding impunity. Israel cannot continue to be exempted from the same laws and standards that equally apply to every State. The Security Council must make it clear: no country, big or small, is above the law.

With diplomatic, political, and legal mechanisms available, coupled with 88 Security Council resolutions, it is high time for international action, to finally hold Israel, the occupying Power, accountable for its violations and crimes against the Palestinian people. 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.”

74 years of dispossession, 54 years of occupation, 30 years of stalling the peace process, and 15 years of blockade constitute a massive, ongoing and worsening historic injustice that prove Israel’s intent to pursue and maintain oppression, colonization and apartheid. As Israel openly persists in defying the international system through the dangerous reality it has created on the ground, the international community, particularly the Security Council, is at a critical moment and must act to pursue accountability in accordance with the rule of law and principles of human decency. The Council is not being called on to reinvent the wheel on the Palestine question. Instead, the Council must build on its Charter duties by upholding its legal, political and moral obligations and implementing its own resolutions to protect human lives and bring an end to this injustice.

This letter This letter is in follow-up to our 728 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 23 July 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 10th 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

9 July 2021 – Israeli Colonization and Human Rights Abuses Against the Palestinian People

Excellency,

I regret that I must once again draw your attention to the deteriorating situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, due to the escalating illegal policies and practices of Israel, the occupying Power. Coupled with systematic human rights violations, the intensity of violent and racist attacks by Israeli occupying forces and mobs of extremists against Palestinian civilians continue to cause widespread human suffering and to aggravate an extremely volatile situation.

Since the beginning of the year, we have repeatedly cautioned the international community about intensifying Israeli attacks and human rights violations against the Palestinian people and urged action in line with legal obligations under international law, including humanitarian and human rights law. Yet, halfway through the year, even as the scope and scale of crimes and violations escalate Israel’s impunity rages unabated, inaction and unaccountability remain the regrettable norm.

Whether conveyed by the State of Palestine or other responsible entities, the level of warnings in this year alone underscores the urgency of serious action to bring a halt to Israel’s systematic breaches, including its rabid settlement colonization of our land. It is through such colonization that Israel has entrenched its illegal occupation and perpetuated its inhumane subjugation of our people, amounting to a regime of apartheid and exposing that it has no intention whatsoever of ending this illegal situation, but rather clearly preparing for full-fledged annexation of the Palestinian land and continued domination of the Palestinian people.

In this regard, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, Michael Lynk, has stressed in a statement issued today, 9 July, that the Israeli settlements are “the engine of Israel’s 54-year-old occupation, the longest in the modern world”. Underscoring the deleterious effect of the lack of accountability, he moreover stated: “It is a tragic paradox that, while the Israeli settlements are clearly prohibited by international law, the international community has been remarkably reluctant to enforce its own laws”. But beyond lamenting this unjust situation, the Special Rapporteur, as so many others, continues to rightly call for action to uphold international law and implement the relevant United Nations resolutions, including Security Council resolution 2334 (2016), in order to immediately address the critical situation on the ground and to also chart a path forward for a political horizon in which it will be possible to pursue a just and peaceful solution.

The dangers of this situation are illustrated in so many instances, including in the town of Beita, near Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, which highlights the daily Palestinian struggle and resiliency against a criminal colonization enterprise that has no regard for their presence or rights. In Beita, extremist Israeli settler groups established in May an illegal outpost on the town’s mountaintop of Jabal Sbeih. Under the protection of Israeli occupation forces (IOF), settler extremist groups such as “Lehava”, “La Familia”, “Price Tag”, and “Hilltop Youth” have intensified attacks on Beita’s lands and residents in a coordinated campaign to expand illegal settlements through continued expropriation of Palestinian land and facilitation of the establishment of settler-only roads, bypasses, tunnels, and other essential infrastructure, cutting of Palestinian areas and further privileging the Israeli settlers illegally transferred to our land.

Most of the settler extremists in Beita have come from nearby settlements and outposts, mainly from the so-called “Yitzhar” settlement, whose settler population is notoriously known for incitement and violence. IOF also persist with lethal use of force against civilians protesting the expropriation of Beita’s lands, with two teenagers being the latest victims: 16-year-old Mohammed Hamayel, and 17-year-old Ahmed Bani-Shamsa. Since the start of anti-settlement protests in Beita in May, IOF has killed six Palestinians and injured more than 700 Palestinians as Israel blatantly prepares seeks to further colonize the Palestinian land and destroy its contiguity and diminish the Palestinian presence, as being done in the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem and elsewhere throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Yet, the villagers in Beita and surrounding area, like the rest of the Palestinian people, will not capitulate to the terror and oppression of the IOF and state-sponsored settler groups and remain steadfast, protecting their land and demanding their rights. Settlers “temporarily” evacuated the illegal outpost as Beita’s residents have been determined, using nonviolent means, to defend their lands and homes from ever-expanding and encroaching settlements. As settler groups “negotiate” with the Israeli government on their unlawful return to Beita, the brave residents of Beita are entitled to and will continue to resist the settlement colonization of their lands, even if the Israeli army attempts to illegally seize the land under the pretext of establishing a so-called military “firing zone”. We thus reiterate our longstanding call on the international community to act to bring an end to Israel’s colonial settlement drive, for which Israel must be fully held accountable.

In this regard, we draw attention to the 7 July letter signed by 130 European parliamentarians, warning about Israel’s illegal settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and urging support for the UN database of businesses involved in “activities facilitating a range of violations, including the appropriation of land, destruction of property, the unlawful exploitation of natural resources, and the construction of settlement units and associated infrastructure, all contributing to the maintenance and growth of Israel’s settlement enterprise”. Moreover, the parliamentarians stress that “through the settlement enterprise and Separation Wall, in which the contribution of business enterprises is vivid, Israel has established a situation of de facto annexation in the occupied West Bank, besides the annexation of occupied East Jerusalem.” It is time to stop making excuses for such criminal behavior. Accountability is imperative; the international community has the tools to do so and it must act without delay.

In this connection, we must also draw attention to Israel’s aggression yet again on Palestinian Bedouin families in Humsa Al-Bqai’a, also known as Khirbet Humsa. On 7 July, IOF again dismantled and demolished homes  and property in the community, insisting on its forced displacement in direct violation of the obligations of the occupying Power under international humanitarian law. This is the seventh time since November 2020 that IOF, equipped with heavy militarized machinery, destroyed the community, and the international community has yet to save it once from demolition or hold Israel accountable. As stressed by the Norwegian Refugee Council, “The international community must resolutely condemn this dispossession and show that it will not tolerate these brazen breaches of international law. The Israeli authorities must immediately grant humanitarian access to the community to meet their urgent needs.”

As a result, 30 structures were demolished, mostly provided by the EU as a humanitarian response following a previous mass demolition in February. According to NGO West Bank Protection Consortium, 65 people, including 35 children, were again displaced and left with nowhere to go in 102°F (39 Celsius) heat. As in so many other instances, Israel attempts to justify destruction of Humsa Al-Bqai’a based on empty pretexts, including its unilateral designation of such areas as so-called “firing zones”, all aimed at one objective: entrenching its control and occupation of the land.

Such repeated destruction of an entire community is explicitly intended to create an ever more coercive environment, facilitating greater control over Palestinian land, but without Palestinians, further acceleration the realization of Israel’s illegal annexation schemes. As reported by OCHA, “So far in 2021, Israeli authorities have demolished, seized or forced people to demolish at least 421 Palestinian-owned structures, including 130 donor-funded, displacing 592 people, including some 320 children across the West Bank.” This has happened in just the span of the first six months of the year, before the eyes of the world and in the middle of a global pandemic, and yet there is no accountability.

At the same time, Palestinian families in the neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem remain at imminent risk of forced displacement and mass dispossession due to the same illegal Israeli policies aimed at forcibly removing Palestinians from their homes and land and replacing them with Jewish settlers. This has been known Israeli policy for decades and has been especially virulent in and around Jerusalem.

On 6 July, IOF destroyed a school in Shufat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem under the pretext it lacked an occupation-issued building permit. 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. The following day, IOF issued demolition orders against residential buildings in Shufat refugee camp. If the demolitions are not halted, 10 Palestinian families comprising 55 people, including 25 children, will be displaced.

On 6 July, a Palestinian family in al-Tur neighborhood of East Jerusalem was forced to self-demolish their home to avoid the heavy demolition fees punitively imposed by the occupation. This is the second time the Abu Ghannam’s home has been demolished; the first time was in 1994. On 8 July, IOF stormed Turmus Ayya, near Ramallah, and rigged the two-story family home of Muntaser Shalabi, a Palestinian detainee in Israel, with explosives before blowing it up into rubble in a punitive measure that amounts to collective punishment. Here we echo the call of the US embassy: “the home of an entire family should not be demolished for the actions of one individual.” The international community must explicitly demand that Israel, the occupying Power, cease such criminal action and abide by its legal obligations under international humanitarian law, particularly Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying Power from imposing collective punishment on protected persons and their property.

In this connection, we must also draw attention to the ongoing and worsening humanitarian crisis in the besieged Gaza Strip. According to a joint UN, EU, World Bank assessment, the extent of physical damage caused by Israel’s latest aggression on Gaza ranges between US$290 to US$380 million, exacerbating the already dire socio-economic conditions being suffered by Gaza’s two million people as a result of repeated military aggressions by Israel and its illegal 15-year blockade. As underlined in the recent report of UN Special Rapporteur Lynk to the Human Rights Council, “The Israeli-imposed blockade on Gaza contravenes international law, specifically Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and amounts to the collective punishment of the entire civilian population in Gaza.” We reiterate our calls for the full lifting of the land, air and sea blockade imposed on the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza and the imperative of unimpeded access to humanitarian needs and relief.

In this regard, we highlight UNRWA’s humanitarian recovery appeal calling for the provision of immediate assistance to meet the immense needs of the many Palestine refugee children, women and men in Gaza devastated by the Israeli military aggression, and reiterate our deep gratitude for the critical and tireless efforts of the many UN personnel and agencies assisting the Palestinian people.

Year after year, the international community issues statements and condemnations on cycles of Israeli crimes and violations, yet falls short of translating words into action. Year after year, the United Nations as a whole adopts countless of resolutions highlighting the gravity and many dangers of the continuation of this historic injustice, but falls short on implementation and accountability. Clearly, such cycles of inaction only fuel Israel’s impunity while undermining the credibility of international law and the United Nations system as a whole. People across the world are watching, and history is keeping account.

As the longest belligerent occupation in modern history has entered its 54th year, it is incumbent on the international community, particularly the Security Council, using the means and measures afforded by international law to finally hold Israel, the occupying Power, accountable for its violations and crimes against the Palestinian people. Despite the Security Council’s regrettable ongoing paralysis, States must uphold their obligations and commitments. In this regard, accountability is central both for ending this historic injustice and reasserting the applicability of international law in the face of violations and breaches. As affirmed in Article 24 of the UN Charter, “Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.”

Like all occupiers of the past, Israel will come to realize that it cannot occupy and subjugate the Palestinian people indefinitely. Just like olive trees, our roots are deep and grow under harsh conditions. Just like Al-Ghadanfar Abu Atwan, the 28-year-old Palestinian man who went on hunger strike for 65 days in protest of his unlawful imprisonment without charge or trial by Israel, the Palestinian people will persist in their just and dignified struggle for self-determination, freedom and justice, as prominently enshrined in the UN Charter. Ghadanfar, meaning lion in Arabic, amplifies the strength of the resilience of the Palestinian people in their quest to live in freedom, independence and dignity in their homeland, an inalienable right we will never forsake. We call upon the international community to uphold its obligations in respect of this inalienable right to help usher the more just, peaceful and secure future we seek and deserve.

This letter is in follow-up to our 725 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 28 June 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 10th 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

16 June 2021 – Israeli Colonization and Human Rights Violations in Palestine

Excellency,

I write once again to draw urgent attention to the deepening hardships and vulnerabilities being endured by the Palestinian people as Israel, the occupying Power, escalates its illegal policies and practices in tandem with the rising lawlessness it has cultivated among the most extreme elements of its population, particularly the settlers illegally transferred to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.

Carrying on with its violations of the 21 May “ceasefire” – violations that have never in fact ceased – Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have launched yet more brutal attacks against the defenseless Palestinian civilian population. This has included yesterday, 15 June, another round of terrorizing airstrikes against the Gaza Strip, as well as assaults on Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem that left dozens of people wounded.

IOF brutally attacked Palestinians in the Old City of Jerusalem and forced Palestinian shops to shut down to make way for an anti-Palestinian march by extremist Israeli settlers and far-right politicians. Under the protection of IOF, mobs of settler extremists swarmed through the Old City, chanting hateful slogans and attacking Palestinian civilians and properties in a so-called “parade” to mark the anniversary of Israel’s illegal occupation of East Jerusalem in 1967. These settler mobs received a so-called greenlight by the new Israeli government to carry out such incitement and violent provocations, proving the ongoing intent to entrench this illegal colonial occupation, regardless of Israel’s political landscape. And, as the occupying Power continues to coordinate, sponsor, and promote settler provocations, Jerusalem’s holy sites, particularly Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif, are becoming ever more caught in the dangerous crosshairs of settler extremism.

Such state-sponsored provocations are aggravating the high tensions in occupied East Jerusalem and threatened to reignite the cycle of violence, as the Old City has turned into a military zone to ensure protection for the most extreme components of Israeli society at the expense of rights and presence of Palestinian Jerusalemites, who are being increasingly repressed by the IOF. Palestinians are being daily confronted by extremist provocations, which are forcing them to remain in their homes while marauding settlers pound on doors and windows, shouting “mavet la’aravim”“Death to the Arabs” – and other hateful, racist slogans.

Here, we must reiterate that Israel is not the sovereign in occupied East Jerusalem or in any part of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 and has no right whatsoever to “route” or “re-route” such supremacist marches through Palestinian cities and no right to barricade areas throughout Jerusalem, including in the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods, turning them into military zones as it continuously attempts to assert its illegal control, colonization and Judaization of the City.

The fact is that Israel’s illegal policies in Jerusalem are creating a living hell for Palestinians, clearly part of broader efforts to drive them from their homes, including, inter alia, the persistent denial of their rights; forced displacement, home demolitions and residency revocations amounting to ethnic cleansing; desecration of holy sites, and imposition of a two-tier system of laws that blatantly discriminate against Palestinians.

Here, we again recall Security Council resolution 2334 (2016), by which the Council unequivocally 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”.

Previous letters have warned about the intensity of such systematic Israeli attacks and human rights violations perpetrated against the Palestinian people. Since our last letter, June has followed May’s lethal trajectory as Israeli forces have already killed five Palestinians, including a child, in utter disregard for basic morality and international law. With absolute impunity and international inaction in its possession, Israel is taking its colonial occupation to new extremes, expediting the theft of more Palestinian property and land and expanding illegal settlements, in tandem with its campaign of military raids and arbitrary arrests, and other blatant violations being documented daily despite the “ceasefire”.

In a span of three days, IOF killed five Palestinians in different parts of the occupied West Bank. On 10 June, three Palestinians, including two officers, Adham Eleiwi, Tayseer Ayasa, and Jamel al-Amori, were shot and killed by IOF during a military raid in Jenin. On 12 June, Ibtesam Kaabneh, 28, was shot and killed by IOF near Jerusalem, after soldiers alleged that she was “carrying a knife”. Eyewitnesses reported that Israeli soldiers deliberately left her to bleed to death by restricting access to medical personnel nearby. This shoot-to-kill policy is rooted deep in the 54-year colonial, apartheid occupation that has permitted its soldiers to indiscriminately target and kill Palestinians based solely on their identity as Palestinians and non-Jews.

The killing of 15-year-old Mohammad Hamayel by IOF is yet another a tragedy borne by yet another devastated Palestinian family. On 11 June, IOF killed Mohammad with live ammunition, shooting him directly in the chest. Like many Palestinian children killed by IOF, Mohammad did not pose any threat to the heavily armed Israeli soldiers who have become accustomed to indiscriminately firing at and killing Palestinians with zero consequences. Beita, Mohammad’s village, has become the scene of weekly demonstrations after Israeli settlers built an outpost in the village. Soldiers regularly fire live ammunition at the civilians protesting against the expropriation of the village’s land for the expansion of an illegal outpost, which will eventually and rapidly transform into yet another illegal Israeli settlement.

Mohammad is the eighth Palestinian child to be killed by IOF in the occupied West Bank in just this year and the third specifically in Beita. Such extrajudicial killings have become a systematic practice of the occupation, amounting to war crimes against the occupied population. Palestinian children, like all children throughout the world, have the right to live a safe, secure and peaceful childhood. Israel’s routine killing of Palestinian children should remind the international community, including the Security Council, that children are protected under the 4th Geneva Convention and other provisions of international law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is a signatory. We call on the international community to act immediately to bring an end to the occupation’s state-sponsored killing of Palestinian children, for which Israel must be fully held accountable.

The wave of mass arrests and large-scale raids by IOF has also intensified with total disregard for the state of emergency that remains in place in the West Bank due to the pandemic, undermining the safety and  well-being of the Palestinian civilian population, in grave violation of international humanitarian law. In this regard, in the early hours of 9 June, IOF raided the main headquarters of the Health Work Committees (HWC) in al-Bireh, damaging and seizing medical and electronic equipment before issuing a military order to close the headquarters for six months. Israeli attacks on health organizations and centers is not new, as HWC’s health center was targeted in a previous raid on 8 March. According to Amnesty International, “The targeting of HWC is part of a wider attack by Israel against Palestinian civil society organizations. Instead of criminalizing organizations providing vital health services, the Israeli authorities should be ending their institutionalized discrimination and systematic oppression of Palestinians.”

Last week, footage also emerged showing a raid in a prison in which IOF used excessive force in one of the most violent attacks against Palestinians being held captive in Israeli jails. Videos show more than 50 Palestinians tied and forcibly thrown onto the concrete floor on top of each other as IOF beat them with batons and beat them randomly, without any resistance from the victims. According to Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, the evidence contradicts Israel’s claims of subduing so-called riots, as the footage clearly shows the abuse of prisoners. Israeli NGO B’Tselem stressed that “The case proves, yet again, that Palestinian victims of violence by Israeli security forces cannot achieve justice via Israeli systems and can hope to do so only in an international court.”

Moreover, Israeli NGO Hamoked stated the following: “The incident is a case of brute, wholesale violence against tied, helpless people. The investigative authorities’ attempt to shirk responsibility, despite the security camera footage, is a badge of shame for the national unit for investigating corrections officers and investigative bodies in general. When that’s the reality, it’s no wonder that the violence of security forces toward Palestinians is so common when that’s how they handle complaints.”

Moreover, just hours before becoming the new Israeli Prime Minister, Bennet doubled-down on his anti-Palestinian rhetoric and occupation-entrenching views, proclaiming that the new government would “strengthen settlements across the whole of the land of Israel.” While many somehow believe Israel’s false portrayal as a “vibrant democracy” based on the emergence of a new government, for millions of Palestinians, the status quo of colonization, apartheid, blockade, and repression remains the reality, imposed by this illegal occupation acting far from any semblance of a democracy.

Israel’s attempts to normalize its occupation must be countered with measures that are capable of stopping such acts of aggression and protecting human lives. The Security Council must rise to its responsibilities and show the international community that the need for accountability outweighs the appeasement which has, until today, exempted Israel from being held to the same laws as every other State.

The Security Council’s inaction only protracts this injustice, compounding the suffering of millions of people and precluding the realization of the peace and security that the Council is duty-bound to maintain. Therefore, the Council must ask itself, will it uphold its duties and resolutions towards ensuring that the right to self-determination is respected and that the historic injustice is ended? Or will it allow this untenable situation to go on, allowing the gross violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms in broad daylight? Ending the 54-year Israeli military occupation is the prerequisite for upholding the rule of law and bringing an end to the grave violations being perpetrated every day against the Palestinian people.

The 4th Geneva Convention states that persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a party to the conflict or occupying Power of which they are not nationals. Israel’s belligerent occupation began as “temporary”, deceiving the international community as not a single Security Council resolution has been implemented by the occupying Power. The so-called “temporary” occupation entered its 54th year this month, proving that Israel has no intention whatsoever to end it. Faced with this reality, States and the Security Council must utilize all available diplomatic, political, legal mechanisms and capabilities to assert international law as a source of authority on the question of Palestine in order to make this regime of colonial occupation and apartheid costly and finally bring it to an end, the only path to justice for the Palestinian people and to Palestinian-Israeli peace and security.

This letter is in follow-up to our 724 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 9 June 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 10th 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

9 June 2021 – Ongoing Israeli Attacks Against the Palestinian People

Excellency,

Predictably, absent any measures of accountability, Israeli occupying forces and mobs of extremists have continued and intensified their violent and racist attacks and incitement against the Palestinian people, further aggravating tensions and portending further deterioration of the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.

The month of June has begun with a series of grave Israeli violations of international law, with May being an unforgettable month stained with the blood of innocent children, women and men. Despite the “ceasefire” that came into effect on 21 May, Israeli violations over the past weeks indicate that Israel could not care less about international law and respecting the human rights of the Palestinian people under its subjugation. In fact, in just the five days since my last letter to you, the occupying Power has undertaken further draconian measures to entrench its 54-year colonial occupation and annexation schemes, particularly in occupied East Jerusalem, turning the City into the focal point of Israel’s illegal colonization schemes.

Israeli occupation forces (IOF) continue to regularly and violently attack Palestinian activists in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, who take part in peaceful sit-ins in protest of Israeli attempts to forcibly expel thousands of Palestinians from their homes in occupied East Jerusalem, only to be replaced by Jewish settlers. Since 1 June, IOF have stormed Sheikh Jarrah on a daily basis, assaulting and arresting Palestinian civilians and journalists, along with imposition of discriminatory measures, such as providing protection to armed settlers and establishing settler-only streets.

In the latest move to repress awareness and activism on the illegal forced displacement campaign in Sheikh Jarrah, IOF have launched coordinated campaigns targeting residents, activists and international journalists. As of today, access via all entrances to Sheikh Jarrah is restricted due to the intensive deployment of IOF in and around the neighborhood. According to OCHA, between the period of 30 April and 22 May, more than 110 residents of Sheikh Jarrah were injured by sponge-tipped bullets, physical assault, stun grenades and gas inhalation. On 5 June, IOF arrested two activists whose family faces forced displacement from their home in Sheikh Jarrah. Muna and Muhammad al-Kurd, twin sister and brother aged 23, were only 9 years old when Israeli settlers, protected by the IOF, stole half of their home and continue to harass them physically, mentally and legally, seeking to forcibly displace them completely.

The following day, Israel intensified its crackdown by attacking a group of journalists and destroying media equipment. In a video widely shared on news networks and social media, IOF beat and arrested journalist Givara Budeiri, who was documenting Israeli crimes in Sheikh Jarrah. This blatant crackdown is part of Israel’s campaign to silence journalists from exposing the reality and brutality of Israeli colonialism and apartheid in Palestine. According to the NGO Reporters Without Borders, Israel arrested 13 Palestinian journalists in May without issuing any charge or trial. Whether it’s the bombing of media offices or the crackdown on a free press, Israel’s systematic targeting of journalism stands in clear violation of international humanitarian law.

While Israel uses its occupation forces to oppress and attack Palestinians throughout the occupied West Bank, it also continues to deploy its secret police in arrest campaigns targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel. The wave of mass arrests and raids is intended to, in the words of Israeli police, to “settle the score” with Palestinians who protested against Israel’s aggression on Gaza, ethnic cleansing in occupied East Jerusalem, and attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque. What happens once arrested? Israeli NGO Adalah documented testimonies from victims, attorneys, and paramedics based on a “torture room” in Nazareth’s police station: “police officers led the detainees to a room located on the left side of the entrance corridor to the station, forcing them to sit on the floor handcuffed, to lower their heads towards the floor, and began to beat them on all parts of their bodies, using kicks and clubs, slamming their heads against walls or doors, and more. Officers wounded the detainees, terrorized them, and whomever dared to lift his head upwards risked more beatings by officers. According to affidavits, the floor of the room was covered in blood from the beatings.”

Palestinians in Israeli prisons also continue to be subjected to inhumane treatment that is widely documented, including physical and psychological torture. On 8 June, three Palestinian prisoners were severely injured after being shot with rubber-coated metal bullets during a raid by Israeli prison guards, inflicting severe wounds on defenseless prisoners. Over 4,000 Palestinians, among them women and children, continue to be held in deplorable conditions and subjected to grave human rights violations. Not only does Israel’s infamous use of torture violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, but is also in violation of the provisions of the United Nations Convention Against Torture to which Israel is a State Party. As the occupying Power, Israel must respect its obligations in prohibiting torture and inhumane treatment of Palestinian prisoners in line with international law, including the 4th Geneva Convention.

Undeterred by the international community’s condemnation of illegal settlements and outposts, Israel also persists with measures for the imminent integration of illegal settlements in preparation for full-fledged annexation. On 7 June, while under the protection of IOF, Israeli settlers razed 400 square meters of Palestinian land near the Ibrahimi Mosque in the Old City of Al-Khalil (Hebron). Also, this week, Israeli settlers established an illegal outpost on Palestinian land in Khirbat Zannouta, south of Al-Khalil. The illegal outpost was deliberately established near the so-called “Shim’a” settlement in order to expand its lands through continued expropriation of Palestinian land and facilitation of the establishment of settler-only roads, bypasses, tunnels, and other essential infrastructure, cutting of Palestinian areas and further privileging the Israeli settlers illegally transferred to our land.

Regrettably, this is the two-tier reality for millions of Palestinians. Just this week, Israel began constructing a settler-only road on stolen Palestinian land near Hizma, north of Jerusalem. Hizma, surrounded by four Israeli settlements, is completely cut off from East Jerusalem due to the segregation and annexation Wall. Once completed, this settler-only road will serve as a faster route for the four illegal settlements surrounding Hizma, connecting them to nearby settlements illegally established in and around occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel aims to completely sever from the rest of the occupied West Bank, seizing the City and its environs in breach of the absolute prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force.

The international community must explicitly demand once again that Israel immediately cease all of its illegal settlement activities in all manifestations 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 abide by its legal obligations, including under the 4th Geneva Convention, as reaffirmed in Security Council resolution 2334 (2016), or suffer the consequences of its rogue behavior.

Israel’s systematic policy of forced displacement through home demolitions and destruction of property also persists unabated. On 5 June, IOF issued demolition orders against six Palestinian shops in Umm al-Rihan, near Jenin. On 7 June, a Palestinian family in the Jabal al-Mukabbir neighborhood of East Jerusalem was forced to self-demolish their home to avoid the heavy demolition fees punitively imposed by the occupation. Also on 7 June, IOF demolished 10 agricultural and livestock structures in Al-Moarajat, near Jericho. On 8 June, IOF destroyed an irrigation pond and agricultural fields in the Jordan Valley. On the same day, IOF demolished livestock barns in Al-Tuwana and Al-Rakeez, near Al-Khalil, further impeding the living conditions of Palestinian farmers, forcing them out of their lands due to harsh restrictions on their wellbeing and limiting their access to resources.

54 years on since the start of Israel’s belligerent occupation, the situation has deteriorated to the worst levels in decades with the deepening of the protection and human rights crisis being endured by the Palestinian people under this illegal occupation. The trauma of the incessant violence of this occupation on Palestinian lives, whether in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, or in Gaza is unimaginable. As stressed by the UN Humanitarian Coordinator, Lynn Hastings, “One message I heard repeatedly is that people in Gaza are traumatised more than ever; girls, boys, women and men. The intensity of the strikes were without pause; too many homes lost and loved ones gone. Many people told me they feel helpless – and no longer have hope. Parents say they cannot reassure their children that this won’t happen again. How can they after so many wars?”

How can any parents in Occupied Palestine assure their children of their safety, their well-being, their very presence in their homes and land after so many years of this illegal occupation, which continues to destroy, kill and terrorize them without consequence.

Decades of inaction have gravely harmed the authority of international law and the credibility of the Security Council in specific, as the longest military occupation in modern history is permitted to continue running roughshod over all norms, rules and rights with impunity. 54 years ago, the Council adopted resolution 242 which called on Israel to withdraw its military from the territories it occupied in June 1967. 54 years and 88 Security Council resolutions later, the Israeli occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, is more prevalent and aggressive than ever. Decades-old assumptions within the Security Council that have promoted the notion that Israel’s military occupation is so-called “temporary” have proven to be detached from reality. To avoid the same detachment, the growing wave of assertions that the crime of apartheid is being committed must be remedied through international action and accountability. Apartheid was not okay in South Africa, is not okay in Palestine, and will not be okay anywhere.

This has long been Israel’s logic: international law does not apply to Israel. We must therefore ask the Council: is Israel held to the same laws and standards as every State? If so, why haven’t any of the 800 General Assembly resolutions and more than 80 Security Council resolutions been implemented?

Of course, Israel can have its own opinion, but not its own facts. The facts are that grave crimes are being committed while inaction continues to undermine international law and embolden impunity. The integrity of the Security Council is at stake since continued inaction and repetitive mantras have proven to be ineffective in ending this historic injustice. Silence will not create change. As warned by Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk, “Nothing could more effectively refute this judgment than for the international community to act on the overwhelming evidence before it, and insist that Israel either fully annul its annexations and relinquish its occupation, or be prepared to bear the full consequences of accountability for its mocking of international law.”

This letter is in follow-up to our 723 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 4 June 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 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

4 June 2021 – Israeli Crimes Persist in the OPT including East Jerusalem

Excellency,

On the eve of the date marking 54 years since the start of Israel’s colonial, foreign occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip and the passage of yet another year of its decades-long racist, apartheid system of oppression the Palestinian people, I am compelled to draw attention to the ever-worsening and volatile situation on the ground absent accountability for this illegal occupation’s crimes and absent a political horizon to bring it to an end.

It has been two weeks since a ceasefire halted the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people, particularly in the Gaza Strip, and yet the occupation’s violence continues as Israel’s occupying forces and extremist settlers persist with countless human rights violations and war crimes against the Palestinian people.

In blatant contradiction of its claims to value the protection of civilians, Israel, the occupying Power, persists with its excessive and often lethal use of force against the unarmed, defenseless Palestinian civilian population under its occupation. On 28 May, Israeli occupation forces shot and killed a young Palestinian man, Zakaria Hamayel, age 28, during an anti-settlement demonstration in the village of Beita, near Nablus. Over 20 Palestinians were injured when Israeli forces opened intensive firing of rubber-coated metal bullets onto another recent nonviolent demonstration. On 2 June, Fadi Washaha, age 34, succumbed to wounds inflicted by Israeli gunfire in the head two weeks ago near Ramallah.

All evidence points to the fact that Israel’s extrajudicial killings of Palestinians are not just arbitrary incidents, but rather part of a systematic pattern of policies designed to control the occupied population through violence, repression and fear. In a video widely shared on news networks and social media on 26 May, Jana Kiswani, 16, was standing outside the front gate of her home in Sheikh Jarrah when occupying forces shot her in the back with a rubber-coated steel bullet. Right after shooting Jana, Israeli soldiers threw stun grenades into her home as she screamed in agony on the ground. Jana now suffers from a fractured spine and bruised lungs.

In the Gaza Strip, the aftermath of Israel’s killing spree and wanton destruction in May continues to have grave humanitarian and psychosocial consequences for the Palestinian civilian population. Despite Israel’s claims of “disengagement”, its siege and 14-year land, air and sea blockade of Gaza, coupled with repeated military onslaughts, the latest being the fourth in the past 13 years, has inflicted unimaginable human suffering and insecurity, as this tiny strip of land and its people are attacked by Israel at will, starved of food, fuel, basic needs, and even hospital supplies whenever the occupying Power so pleases.

As stressed by Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk, “This blockade has no meaningful security rationale. It inflicts great misery on the two million civilians in Gaza, while imposing little harm on any security targets. Israel remains the occupying power, and international law – including Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention – strictly forbids the use of collective punishment by the occupier.”

According to the WHO, this latest Israeli aggression on Gaza resulted in the killing of 278 Palestinians and injury of 9,000, among them hundreds of children and women; 77,000 internally displaced, most seeking shelter in UNRWA schools; and damage to 30 health facilities, among other civilian infrastructure. WHO Head of Office in the OPT, Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, has stressed: “Palestinian lives are deteriorating; many people affected by the conflict are in urgent need of aid and face other health threats like COVID-19”. We thus reiterate our appeals to the international community for urgent humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, including through support to UN agencies such as UNRWA, UNICEF, WHO, WFP and others. But we must also reiterate our calls for urgent action to bring an end to this illegal, inhumane Israeli blockade.

At the same time, we must once again draw attention to the continued confiscation of Palestinian homes, lands and properties as Israel, the occupying Power, accelerates the forced transfer of Palestinians and its settlement colonization schemes, especially in and around occupied East Jerusalem. It is beyond apparent by now that this is all part of a systematic, deliberate plan to remove Palestinians – i.e. ethnically cleanse these areas – in preparation for annexation in grave breach of international law, including the UN Charter, 4th Geneva Convention and UN resolutions, including Security Council resolution 2334 (2016).

While we have repeated appealed for urgent international action to deter Israel, continued inaction is emboldening its impunity. As a result, Israel has taken its colonization measures and collective punishment to new extremes before the world’s eyes with no reaction: expansion of illegal settlements, mass dispossession, excessive use of lethal force, military aggression, widespread arbitrary arrest campaign, and repeated cycles of grave violations. Without consequences it is patently clear that these crimes will not stop.

Indeed, Israel, the occupying Power said it would “suspend” its annexation schemes. But let’s not fool ourselves. Even as the international community applauded the so-called suspension of annexation, Israel proceeded to advance measures for the integration of illegal settlements in preparation for full-fledged annexation. Israel’s acceleration of settlement expansion is further proof of its annexationist aims to control of maximum Palestinian land with minimum Palestinians.

Just last week, Israeli occupation authorities approved the construction of over 500 housing units in the so-called illegal “Mtsad” settlement. These illegal plans are part of Israel’s relentless settlement campaign around occupied East Jerusalem, which aims to cut off Bethlehem from its historical and geographical ties with the Holy City of Jerusalem through a cordon of illegal settlements and outposts.

Here we must again emphasize that Israel’s illegal annexation plans, if allowed to proceed, will spell the demise of the two-State solution on the pre-1967 borders and result in a one-State apartheid reality, with all of the attendant consequences of such a catastrophic scenario.

Moreover, while Israel, the occupying Power claims its two-tier system of separatism and inequality is nonexistent, portraying itself as the “only democracy in the Middle East”, the reality of its belligerent occupation on the ground contradicts this empty claim every single day as its draconian military laws are imposed on the Palestinian people with an iron fist to entrench this belligerent occupation and serve the needs of illegal Israeli settlers on our land.

This of course includes the continued repression of the Palestinian civilian population in occupied East Jerusalem as the attempts persist to forcibly transfer hundreds of Palestinian families from their homes to make way for Israeli Jewish settlers as part of Israel’s colonial annexation and Judaization plans for the City. Despite the “postponement” of court decisions regarding the fate of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan due to international pressure, State-sponsored settler encroachment in both neighborhoods remains relentless and 150 Palestinian families amounting to more than 1,200 individuals remain under threat.

Entry to Sheikh Jarrah has been blockaded by concrete barriers erected by the Israeli occupying forces and there is an increased IOF presence aimed at restricting movement and prohibiting entry of anyone not residing in the neighborhood, intimidating and preventing solidarity protests and support to the families there. In just one of the countless signs of this cynical, illegal and unrelenting repression, the IOF this week detained a 14-year old Palestinian girl, Nufuz Hammad, for painting the Palestinian flag on the faces of her peers at an entertainment event for Palestinian children in the Sheik Jarrah neighborhood. As stressed by UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini, the Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah, like so many others in occupied East Jerusalem, “live in constant fear of being forcibly displaced and losing their homes… and are traumatized by settler violence”.

Here, we again recall Security Council resolution 2334 (2016), by which the Council unequivocally 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 this past week, Israel has also continued the arrest and raid campaigns targeting its Palestinian citizens, further proof of its discrimination and oppression of Palestinians wherever they may be. More than 100 arrests per day have been made in the last week, with night raids regularly taking place in Palestinian communities that protested against Israel’s aggression on Gaza, ethnic cleansing in occupied East Jerusalem, and attacks on Al-Aqsa Mosque. Documentation indicates that at least 91% of those arrested in the recent unrest have been Palestinians, despite the fact that they were on the receiving end of the majority of the violent and racist attacks by Israeli extremists and gangs and police, most of whom are not facing any charges or arrests for their criminal brutality. These arrest and raid campaigns against are clearly“intended to intimidate and exact revenge on Palestinian citizens of Israel – ‘to settle the score’ with Palestinians, in the Israeli police’s own words – for their political positions and activities,” according to Israeli NGO Adalah, which called the campaign “a militarized war.”

No country should be above the law: Israel must be held to the same laws and standards as every State. Faced with the reality of 54years of this illegal, belligerent military occupation, the international community must come to the realization that words and commitments alone will not bring an end to this injustice. Despite more than 800 General Assembly resolutions and more than 80 Security Council resolutions, none have been respected by Israel. Israel has shown over and over that it will not comply with the law and that it will continue to act in contempt of the Security Council and the international consensus. The question that must be asked is: What is needed to remedy this situation?

What is needed now is action. The response to ongoing Israeli crimes and violations must be concrete measures to implement those resolutions and ensure accountability aimed at ending this historic injustice and longest belligerent occupation in modern history, a crime against humanity that must not in any way be excused, appeased or support and that must end. It is absolutely unacceptable that Israel be placed on a pedestal as if it’s the only country on this planet with real and legitimate security concerns, while those exact same concerns of an occupied population and their very right to self-determination and freedom are ignored for the sake of the occupier’s wellbeing, contrary to international law and the entire international system’s credibility.

As the hard facts before us speak for themselves, we therefore call once again on the international community, in particular the Security Council, to uphold the responsibilities to confront this reality and act now to enforce international law, protect civilian lives and salvage the prospects for a just and peaceful solution.

This letter is in follow-up to our 722 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 May 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 10th 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

Statement of H.E. Minister Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, before the Security Council, 27 May 2021

English Translation

Mr. President,

Israel has failed. Failed in defeating Palestinian consciousness and in breaking apart our national belonging. For 73 years, Israel has developed a plan, adopted policies and imposed punishments and devoted tremendous resources to forciblychange the historic, geographic and demographic reality in our homeland, believing that eventually a Palestinian generation will come about and acknowledge defeat and surrender to it. But after over 70 years since the Nakba, the Israeli scheme falls apart at the hands of a new Palestinian generation more rooted in the land than ever and more committed to life, able to forge unity and believing in the inevitability of victory. We have, generation after generation, remained dedicated to Palestine, the color of skin resembling its soil, as there is no alternative to justice and freedom, and occupation cannot last forever regardless of its military might or its colonial appetite.

Israel has failed to distort the consciousness of peoples around the world, unable to hide its colonial and racist nature behind its aggressive attacks and its rabid readiness to hurl libelous accusations against all those who might dare criticize its occupation and call for its end and against all those who stand in solidarity with Palestine and its just cause. There is a new generation worldwide that stands unafraid of Israel and its threats.

How can Israel hide any further the Apartheid it imposes while its features appear everywhere from the river to the sea?

How can it justify calling for a right of return for Jews that would span over 5000 years while denying the right of return of Palestinians to their land and homes after 73 years?

How can it justify the forcible transfer in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, under alleged property claims for Jews while denying the property rights of Palestinians all over historical Palestine?

How can it justify demolishing our homes and razing our fields and stealing our water and resources while claiming its “right” to build illegal settlements on our land and military checkpoints and a wall on our path?

How can it justify vandalizing and inciting against our Christian and Muslim holy sites while claiming that its colonization is a “divine right”?

How does it call for the release of the bodies of killed Israelis while burying hundreds of Palestinians in the cemeteries of numbers (where the name of the buried is replaced by a number to hide his identity) and keeps other bodies hostage of its freezers?

How can it justify that the occupying Power claims an absolute “right to self-defense” and it considers as criminal any action undertaken by any Palestinian to defend his home, his family and his land against the blockade, the aggression of Israel’s occupation forces and the terrorism of Israeli settlers?

How can it justify that its Courts consider every Israeli innocent regardless of his crimes and every Palestinian guilty regardless of his rights?

How can it justify demanding the compassion of the world for its children in the shelters, while being outraged that the world might condemn its kidnaping of our children from their homes and their schools, and their killing in their neighborhoods or playgrounds or in their sleep at home in the arms of their mothers and fathers?

How can it justify all this, and is there anybody left to believe its claims after all of this?

Mr. President,

Didn’t this Council receive the UN reports that warned of the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, stating it was on the verge of collapse and cautioning that violence will resume for as long as this 14 years long illegal blockade continues?

Didn’t Palestinian youth rebel and demonstrate in the return marches for over a year demanding their rights and the lifting of the criminal Israeli blockade that was characterized by international experts as a violation of international law amounting to collective punishment against Palestinian civilians in Gaza?

Didn’t we come time after time warning of the consequences of Israeli policies in occupied Jerusalem and against our Christian and Muslim holy sites, especially its provocations at Al-Haram Al-Sharif, and of its policy of forcible displacement in the old city, Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan and all of Palestine?

Didn’t Israel come over and over again to this Council displaying the arrogance of the occupier and the oppressor, always ready to accuse any of you of anti-semitism, justifying its grave violations as if it was entitled to act as a State above the law, attacking those who dare to call for an end of its settlement policy and for respect of the character and status of Jerusalem and of the historic status quo at Al-Aqsa Mosque/Al-Haram Al-Sharif and for the lifting of the blockade over the Gaza Strip? It shows no remorse or shame in violating its legal obligations as an occupying Power.

The deterioration of the situation in the occupied State of Palestine, especially as we witnessed in Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, is Israel’s making and responsibility and the inevitable result of its oppressive policies and colonial occupation.

We are here today to tell this august Council that ending the latest Israeli aggression against Gaza did not end the catastrophe, and it will not bring back the loved ones fallen martyr or the homes that were destroyed, it will not spare the orphans and the bereaved from the devastating losses they have endured.

We are here to tell you that the postponement by the Israeli Courts of decisions on forcible displacement of Palestinian families in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan did not protect the families from the ongoing aggression by the settlers nor end the tragedy endured in occupied Jerusalem. This did not mean that the Israeli provocations at the Al-Aqsa Mosque have ceased or that measures to change the status of the city and its character have stopped. This has not put an end to Israel’s colonial appetite and desire to annex occupied Palestinian land, remove Palestinians from their land or besiege them in it.

We all stand at a crossroad and if Israel is allowed to choose the way ahead, it will choose the same path and the same policy. It will impose on us Apartheid and annexation, blockade and destruction, and will demand for itself security and stability, refusing to acknowledge the failure of its colonial and racist policies, that are the source of violence and the root cause of the conflict.

We, Palestinians, will not be subjugated. We will not surrender to this occupation. Israel should know that by now. It must confront this reality, that the Palestinian people in all its components will not be subjugated and will not relinquish its right to freedom, independence and self-determination wherever they are. We will only accept the path that leads to the freedom of our people, preserve their national and human dignity and guarantees all their rights as enshrined in international instruments.

This Council and the international community determined a vision for peace decades ago and adopted resolutions that defined the framework and terms of reference for such a solution, as well as the obligations of the parties and of third parties, including not to recognize or render aid or assistance to illegal actions and to distinguish between the occupied territory and the territory of the occupying Power, and to respect and ensure respect for international law. You have to implement these resolutions to achieve just and comprehensive peace, as foreseen in your resolutions, including resolution 2334 (2016).

You have preserved the international consensus and protected it from all the attempts to legitimize occupation and colonization and of distorting the terms of reference, and now that the Trump administration is gone, and with it the illusions it was trying to promote, and with the return of the United States to the international consensus and the reactivation of the Quartet, it is no longer enough to restate what the law says, it must be enforced.

Please, don’t ask us to be patient, as every additional hour carries with it pain and suffering. Until when should we be patient, until the next massacre? Until the child grows in the occupation cells? Until the family is displaced for the third or fourth time? Until the settlement expands and closes of the veins of life in Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley? Until an entire generation grows knowing nothing but siege and deprivation?

Mr. President,

The battle for existence in Palestine, and at its heart Jerusalem, is taking place on the ground, house by house, and in the alleys of the Old City, and in our Aqsa and Holy Sepulchre, and on every hilltop and neighborhood and village and refugee camp. Peace can not be achieved in the land of peace and the City of peace without the recognition of Palestinian sovereignty and respect of the Hashemite custodianship.

Your responsibility is not only to adopt resolutions here, but to change the reality there, to protect the Palestinians there, to ensure freedom prevails there, to achieve peace there.

The reconstruction of the besieged Gaza Strip must be a top priority right now, starting with providing immediate humanitarian assistance to the thousands internally displaced, especially in the context of the pandemic. But we all know that what is required is addressing the root causes of this situation in a manner consistent with the unity of our people, land and destiny and lifting the blockade and ensuring freedom of movement of people and goods to revive economic life and to allow the provision of fuel, medical equipment, medicine and construction material as well as the normal and sustainable functioning of the power plant so as to end the humanitarian tragedy the Palestinian people in Gaza have endured for the last 15 years, and to unleash the true potential of its youth so they can express their talent and creativity.

Mr. President,

The last few weeks demonstrated that Israel’s claim that the question of Palestine no longer inhabits the hearts and minds of peoples in the Arab and Muslim world, or peoples worldwide, and that it has become a marginal issue with no relevance or influence, is a false and invalid claim.

The question of Palestine can not be overlooked or bypassed, given its regional and international significance. We commend all regional and international efforts to put an end to the Israeli aggression on Gaza and to launch a credible political process that places Palestine at the top of the list of priorities. We stress however that the success of such a political process is contingent on ending the ongoing aggression against our people, our land and our holy sites, and on the ability of this Council to implement its resolutions and on the international community’s rejection of double standards and its ability to uphold the rules it has adopted and enshrined in the UN Charter, international law and relevant resolutions.

Mr. President,

We, the Palestinian people, are, despite all the killing and destruction, a living nation, thriving by its history, its traditions, its culture, its poets, its dreams, its creativity, its bravery, its diversity, its love, its anger, its tolerance, its patriotism and its humanity. We resemble our land and belong to it, and will never abandon it, whether we live in it or it lives in us, one rebellious generation after the other, impossible to uproot. Here in Palestine we have a past, a present and a future. Regardless who agrees and who objects.

I thank you, Mr. President.

21 May 2021 – Letter on Article 51 – Self-Defense

Excellency,

I write to you in response to a letter by the Permanent Representative to Israel to the United Nations Security Council on 12 May 2021 (S/2021/463), invoking Israel’s so-called ‘right and duty to defend its people and sovereignty’ and urging the international community to support its ‘fundamental right to self-defense’. 

Israel’s invocation of the principle of self-defense as an occupying Power, is illegitimate and must be countered with a clear response rooted in international law, the same international law that it systematically breaches with contempt yet has the audacity to invoke when it deems beneficial to itself.

Israel’s continued illegal and 54-year occupation of the State of Palestine, including East Jerusalem, is an act of aggression and cannot be retroactively justified by reference to the right of self-defense. Indeed, the principle of self-defense cannot be applied by Israel for itself in the occupied territory of the State of Palestine. The occupying Power has no sovereignty rights whatsoever in the occupied territory, to which international law, including humanitarian law, fully applies.

Israel, the occupying Power, cannot invoke the so-called right to self-defense to justify the use of excessive military force against the besieged Palestinian civilian population in the occupied Gaza Strip. As reaffirmed by the United Nations Security Council in its resolution 1860 (2009), the Gaza Strip is an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel since 1967.  Israel remains the occupying Power and is thus bound by the relevant provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention and all other relevant provisions of international law, including United Nations resolutions.

The aforementioned letter by the Permanent Representative to Israel to the United Nations Security Council makes an impermissible conflation between Israel’s obligations, as an occupying Power, within the territory under its occupation, and the general principle of self-defense, as guaranteed under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. In this regard, it is imperative to recall that the International Court of Justice, in its 2004 Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall, clearly established the non-applicability and irrelevance of this ‘self-defense’ argument to the territory under Israel’s occupation. 

As of 20 May 2021, Israel, the occupying Power, has killed over 232 Palestinians, including 65 children, 39 women, and 17 elderly, and injured over 1900 people, many critically wounded, and displaced over 60,000 Palestinians as a result of its most recent military aggression against Gaza. Entire families have been killed and wanton destruction has been caused as Israel deliberately and systematically targeted and caused damage and destruction to vital civilian infrastructure, including health facilities, schools, electricity networks, a desalination plant providing clean water to 250,000 people, commercial and media towers, and residential buildings, totally 450 buildings and structures. It is to be recalled that Gaza has also been under Israel’s blockade, by air, land and sea, for 14 years, in a massive collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian population.

Israeli officials are committing grave and serious breaches against a besieged population, before the eyes and ears of the entire world, and yet deign to frame their crimes and violations as ‘self-defense’.  Israel’s willful violations against the protected population and unjustified destruction of civilian property are war crimes, not self-defense, and violate its obligations, as an occupying Power, under international humanitarian law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, and international human rights law.

As per the law, Israel, as the occupying Power, is strictly prohibited, from both imposing collective punishment and conducting or threatening to conduct, acts of violence and destruction, of which the primary purpose is to spread terror among the protected population under its occupation. None of the rights of protected persons derived from the Fourth Geneva Convention may be terminated by Israel in any case or in any manner whatsoever.

Therefore, we reiterate that its invocation of the ‘right to self-defense’ to justify these systematic violations and crimes it is committing against the Palestinian people must not be appeased. Israel must be demanded to respect its obligations under international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, as has been repeatedly demanded by the Security Council and the General Assembly of in countless resolutions that not only remain unimplemented but are being breached every single day with utter contempt and with grave repercussions on the lives of the Palestinian people who continue to gravely suffer under this illegal, colonial occupation.

This letter is in follow-up to our 720 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 18 May 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 10th 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

18 May 2021 – Criminal Israeli Aggression on Palestine

Excellency,

Absent international accountability, Israel, the occupying Power, carries on with its war crimes against the Palestinian people, trampling every human right and causing widespread death, injury and wanton destruction.

The Security Council’s paralysis in particular has led Israel to again believe that it has the green light to kill Palestinians and that it can perpetrate its crimes without repercussions. As I write to you, Palestinian children are being killed, bodies maimed and buried in the rubble of their homes, hospitals attacked, buildings flattened, and civilian infrastructure destroyed by a savage Israeli onslaught that is in flagrant and grave breach of every rule of international law, including the 4th Geneva Convention, and the countless United Nations resolutions that remain unimplemented to this day.

To save human lives, immediate action is needed to bring a halt to this Israeli military aggression against the defenseless Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and particularly now in the besieged Gaza Strip, where entire families are being killed and over 50,000 people have fled in fear to shelter in 58 UNRWA schools and installations, praying for safety under the UN’s blue flag, but in a place where no one is safe from Israel’s missiles and bombs, and all as the world looks on.

The priority right now must be to stop the killing and destruction. But, calls for a ceasefire that ignore the fact of Israel’s impunity and that attempt to return to an unjust and untenable “status quo”, whereby Israel is permitted to carry on with its illegal occupation and its persecution and oppression of Palestinians, wherever they may be, are unacceptable and will only consign our people to further oppression, misery and loss.

As we have continually done, we thus call again for accountability for all of these crimes and serious action to address the root causes of this grave injustice that have never been resolved: the mass expulsion and forced displacement of Palestinians for decades, the colonization and annexation of their land and the denial and violation of their inalienable human rights. Only such action can change the reality we face and bring forth a day when justice and lasting peace and security are possible.

The international laws to guarantee such an outcome exist; the international framework, as enshrined in UN resolutions and international consensus exist; what is needed is the political will to demand and ensure respect for the law and for human life. Rogue states like Israel that do not respect international law and breach it with utter contempt should not be applauded and appeased by the international community, but should rather be denounced and held responsible for their crimes.

The future we want and the UN we need demands that this be the case without exception. States must stop the exceptional treatment of Israel, the occupying Power, that has only encouraged this impunity and allowed for the wanton killing, maiming and destruction to go on endlessly, shredding lives, hopes, the potential for peace and any credibility of the international system.

Day after day, letter after letter, the number of Palestinians killed continues to rise despite our pleas and the appeals of countries and peoples around the world, for the Security Council to uphold its duty to maintain international peace and security and protect innocent civilian lives. As of today, the Israeli military aggression on Gaza, which began on 10 May, has killed 213 Palestinians, including 61 children, 36 women and 16 elderly persons, and nearly 1,500 people have been wounded.

Also, since 7 May, Israeli occupying forces in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem have killed 25 Palestinians. Since the beginning of Israel’s raids at Al-Aqsa Mosque, and throughout the forced displacement campaign being waged against Palestinian families in the Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan neighborhoods of occupied East Jerusalem, the use of live ammunition and lethal force by occupying forces has only intensified causing widespread civilian casualties. In addition to those killed, at least 5,000 Palestinians have been injured by the Israeli occupying forces, including many children.

As Israel’s excessive use of force against Palestinians continues on both sides of the Green Line (the pre-1967 borders), Palestinian citizens in Israel also continue to be brutally assaulted by Israeli police and extremist groups. Although the main victims of these assaults, it is Palestinians that are being arrested. At least 800 Palestinians have been arrested and of the 116 indictments in the Israel courts, all have been against Palestinians, with zero indictments filed against the Jewish extremist groups such as the “Lehava”, “La Familia”, “Price Tag”, “Hilltop Youth” and the gangs and individuals. Such blatant discrimination against Palestinian citizens is just further proof of Israel’s status as an Apartheid regime

Meanwhile, in the Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes carried out the deadliest attack in recent days, killing 43 Palestinians, including 10 children and 16 women, in a single overnight campaign from Sunday into Monday, that targeted residential buildings. This included attacks that completely destroyed two residential buildings belonging to the Abu al-Ouf and al-Kolaq families – killing 30 people – 11 of them children. As stressed by Defense for Children International-Palestine (DCIP), “Systemic impunity ensures there are no safe spaces for Palestinian children living under Israeli occupation. They can be killed at any moment with no accountability.”

As reported by UN agencies, the situation of children is dire, with UNICEF reporting that the ages of the Palestinian children killed in Gaza range between 6 months and 17 years. Over half of them were under 10 years old, and children are nearly a third of civilian casualties, and those who have survived being terrorized and traumatized for life as Israel persists indiscriminately, yet deliberately, attacking civilian areas in grave breach of international humanitarian law. We reiterate our call in this regard for Israel, its military forces and settlers to be included in the list of parties that commit grave violations affecting children in situations of armed conflict, and we call once again for international protection for the Palestinian civilian population, including and in particular children, as they are in desperate need of an entitled to under international law.

In the above-mentioned attacks targeting residential buildings, two senior Palestinian doctors were also killed by Israeli bombing of their homes. Dr. Ayman Abu al-Ouf, was killed along with his two children, and Dr. Muin Ahmad al-Aloul was along with family members, all while sheltering in the sanctity of their homes. Such killings further reveal Israel’s intent to decimate Palestinian capacities in all fields, including the medical field.

In this regard, it must be stressed that Israel also continues to bomb main roads leading to hospitals and healthcare facilities, including an attack yesterday on the central and only COVID-19 testing lab in Gaza Al-Rimal health clinic, rendering it inoperable. The central and only COVID-19 testing lab in Gaza is no longer functional after the Israeli bombing of the Al-Rimal health clinic. The Palestine Red Crescent Headquarters in Gaza City has also sustained damage.

According to OCHA, six hospitals and nine primary health care centers have been damaged, with one center suffering severe damage. One hospital is not functioning due to lack of fuel. Such destruction of medical facilities is worsening the dire status of the health system in Gaza, which was already on the verge of collapse before the pandemic due to Israel’s crippling and dehumanizing 14-year blockade. The Israeli military aggression has also brought a halt to the COVID vaccine campaign in Gaza, where the vaccination rate is only 1.9%. A large number of precious vaccines will soon expire if the vaccination campaign remains suspended due to the Israeli aggression, risking further spread of this deadly pandemic. We echo the call of the World Health Organization (WHO) Executive Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus for the protection of health workers and medical infrastructure at all times, as required by international humanitarian law.

We further appeal for humanity to address the extraordinary humanitarian needs of our people in Gaza, including for food and other basic life necessities, as Israel intentionally inflicts a man-made disaster, with far-reaching repercussions. As stressed by the World Food Programme (WFP) Regional Director for Middle East and North Africa, Corinne Fleischer, in her call for emergency assistance to the Palestinian civilian population,  “The majority of the population cannot withstand further shocks and the current situation could unleash a crisis that could spill into the entire region.”

We urge the international community to respond to the appeals for humanitarian support. We call for urgent funding to UNRWA to enable the continuity of its indispensable, life-saving assistance to the Palestine refugees and the tens of thousands who have been displaced from their homes, including over 2,500 people who have  been rendered homeless, losing everything in this criminal onslaught, and are in need of food, shelter, blankets, and hygiene supplies. We call also donor support to UNICEF, WFP, WHO, OCHA and other UN agencies to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches Palestinian civilians most in need.

Swift action is required by the international community on both the political and humanitarian fronts. Despite widespread international condemnation, including protests by millions of people of conscience around the world, Israel, the occupying Power, remains emboldened by the silence of the Security Council and the absence of concrete measures to hold it accountable under international law. As long as action is delayed, it is clear Israel will continue its atrocities on Palestinians, wherever they maybe, whether in Gaza and Jerusalem, or in Lod and Haifa.

The Council must rise to its responsibilities and show the world it is capable of stopping such acts of aggression and protecting human lives. And, there is absolutely no contradiction between efforts by the Council and ongoing diplomatic efforts to bring a halt to the onslaught. They are not mutually exclusive; they are complementary and absolutely imperative and urgent. Those who undermine collective action must bear responsibility for the civilian lives being claimed by this Israeli aggression. Arguments of equivocation are unacceptable and wrongly portray this crisis as one between two parties on equal footing, distorting the reality that this is the case of a belligerent occupier and an occupied civilian population and the rules of international law apply without exception. T

he devastation being wrought across Gaza in these moments is unconscionable, making it incumbent on the international community, particularly the Security Council, as well as the High Contracting Parties to the 4th Geneva Convention, to deploy all measures possible to ensure Israel’s compliance with international law. This must go beyond statements and translate into action, using all the diplomatic and legal tools at the international community’s disposal to ensure accountability and justice for the many victims and to salvage the prospects for peace and security.

To conclude, we salute the steadfast Palestinian people who persist in their just and dignified struggle for self-determination and freedom and justice. We salute the refugees in exile who yearn for their rightful return. We salute the heroism of Palestinians standing against forced displacement from their land. We salute the resilience spirit of the Palestinian people who teach life in the face of colonial occupation.

This letter is in follow-up to our 718 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 17 May 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 10th 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

Statement by H.E. Riad Malki, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of the State of Palestine, before the UN Security Council, 16 May 2021

Mr. President

Allow me to thank China for convening this important meeting and for being represented at Ministerial level, as well as Tunisia for their relentless efforts within this Council, and my Arab brothers who decided to participate in this meeting as an integral part of their efforts to end the aggression against our people, land and holy sites. Allow me also to thank the Secretary General for his participation and ongoing efforts, together with Special Coordinator Tor Wennesland, to end this latest aggression against our people.

Mr. President,

There are no words that can describe the horrors our people are enduring. Baby Omar Al Hadidi came to life only 5 months ago and will now have to go through life without his mother and brothers Osama 6, Abdelrahman 8, Suheib 14, all killed by an Israeli airstrike. His family is not the only one. Members of the family Abu Hattab were killed, including Alaa 5, Bilal 10, Youssef 11, and the family Al Tanani, Rawya was 4-months pregnant, she was killed together with her husband and sons Ismael 6, Ameer 5, Adham 4, Mohammed 3. A few hours ago, 15 members of the family Al-Qolak were killed, including Zeid 8, Adam 3 and Qossai 1 and their parents. Aziz survived, he is 10.

When you embrace your children and grandchildren tonight, think of our children and of how you can honour those killed and spare those still alive. Think of what it feels to see your world crumbling down and not being able to protect them. Think of what it means to sleep not knowing which one of you will wake up. Remember that each time Israel hears a foreign leader speak of its right to defend itself, it is further emboldened to continue murdering entire families in their sleep.

Israel is killing Palestinians in Gaza, one family at a time. Israel is trying to uproot Palestinians from Jerusalem, expelling families, one home, one neighbourhood at a time.

Israel is persecuting our people, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Some may not want to use these words, but they know they are true. Israel is unapologetic and relentless in pursuing its colonial policies. We are therefore left with two questions.

The first one is: What are the Palestinian people entitled to do to resist such policies and defend themselves. The following questions hold the answer: Is violence when committed by Palestinians terrorism and when committed by Israel self-defense? Who will be arrested, the settlers or those resisting their presence and assaults? Will our peaceful protesters enjoy international protection or be left to face Israeli bullets and slander? Will we receive support for investigations by the ICC, or will some search for reasons to object, shielding war criminals and depriving Palestinian victims from any avenue for justice? Will products of Israeli settlements be banned, or will those who call for boycott be prosecuted? What are we entitled to do apart from hoping that one day Israel will be ready to end its occupation on its own and to negotiate peace?

The second question is: What are the tools the international community is ready to deploy to ensure compliance by Israel with its obligations and an end of its occupation, tools it uses regularly in other conflicts. Military intervention? Sanctions? Suspending bilateral relations? Prosecuting perpetrators of crimes? Deploying protection forces? Imposing an arms embargo? Or will it rely simply on the possibility of convincing the occupying Power to end its colonial occupation while history has proven that Israel is not willing to listen?

Mr. President,

Israel keeps doing the same things expecting a different result. Did it believe that its troops storming the holiest of sites, Al Aqsa Mosque, on the holiest of months, Ramadan, and on the holiest of nights, the night of destiny, would bear no consequences? Did it believe Palestinians would accept to live in enclaves and wait for the Israeli settlers to seize the next house? Did they expect Palestinians to coexist with the occupation, its walls, its blockades, its settlements and its prisons? There is no people on earth that would tolerate this reality.  

Israel keeps telling you “put yourself in our shoes?” But Israel is not wearing shoes, it is wearing military boots. It is an occupying and a colonial power. Any assessment of the situation that fails to take into account this fundamental fact is biased, discredited and unjust. We are not two neighbours living side by side in peace. Israel is the armed thief who has entered our house and is terrorizing our family. It destroys our homes, oppresses our people, generation after generation, decade after decade, and then claims a right to security that it denies us.

Why don’t you put yourself in our shoes. What would you do if your country was occupied, your people persecuted, besieged, massacred? Better yet, what did you do to achieve your independence and end the oppression of your people? We made a difficult choice to pursue a peaceful path to freedom, and it is in everybody’s interest for that path to be successful. But that will not happen without ensuring that Israel bears the cost of occupation instead of reaping its benefits.

Mr. President,

How many Palestinian civilians killed is enough for a condemnation? We know a single Israeli is, but how many Palestinians? 200 Palestinians have been killed, a third of them children and women. What is the threshold for outrage? An entire family wiped out of existence is not enough? Dozens of families killed is not enough? Residential buildings brought to the ground and tens of thousands of Palestinians displaced for the fourth or fifth time is not enough?  All this in the midst of a pandemic.

Israel is not only an occupying Power, it is a nuclear power, it has a military arsenal, the iron dome, shelters, while our people in Gaza are besieged, trapped, with nowhere to go and no safe haven. Even the UNRWA schools within which they shelter are vulnerable to Israeli attacks. It is Palestinian civilians who need protection. They deserve compassion, solidarity and action.

The Palestinian people have risen everywhere, because they are victims everywhere. Victims of dispossession, forced displacement, discrimination and denial of rights on both sides of the Green Line and in exile. When hearing Israeli officials speak one could wonder how horrible it must be for them to live under our occupation, with our forces deployed in their streets and our settlers terrorizing their people and taking over their land and homes, and with millions of them under blocakde. As many colonial powers before it, Israel holds its victims responsible for their own death. Israel is the victim forced to kill the Palestinians because they do not behave. If only Palestinians could coexist with their occupiers and oppressors in peace.

Some wonder why Palestine enjoys so much solidarity and support from so many nations around the world, and the reason is that these nations are informed by their own history, their own struggle for freedom, and they know oppression when they see it. The countries who sit in these United Nations would be dishonoring the memory of those who fought for freedom in their respective countries if they were to accept colonialism and Apartheid in Palestine.

Mr. President,

Where are they those who proclaimed they had achieved peace in the Middle East by brokering agreements between countries who were actually not at war? Where are they those who proclaimed that peace in the Middle East could be achieved without the Palestinians and at their expense? Where are they those real estate agents who decided they could sell what they do not own to those who have no rightful claim. We told them then and we say now, Jerusalem is not for sale. Our roots are deep, our history long, our heritage etched in every stone, street and alley in this City.  War and peace start from Jerusalem. You want to save peace, start by saving Sheikh Jarrah. Protect Al Haram Al Sharif from attempts to divide it temporally and spatially. Israel continues proclaiming that Jerusalem is the unified capital of Israel. Have you ever seen the city more divided?

The international consensus you have all helped shape and defend is being destroyed in front of our very eyes. The alternative that Israel chose is Apartheid. Yes Apartheid. And one day soon, even this Council will not be able to deny this reality. Act now to end the aggression and the assault on our people, our homes, our land. Act now so freedom can prevail, not Apartheid.

Mr. President,

As the Palestinian people mark the 73rd anniversary of the Nakba, Israel pursues the same policies of dispossession, forced displacement, discrimination and denial of Palestinian rights.

Israel may believe it is winning, but it is no where closer to defeating the Palestinian people. Our people will never surrender or forgo their rights. Palestinian freedom is the only path to peace.  Since peace is the responsibility of this Council, helping achieve Palestinian freedom is its legal and moral duty. Thank you