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
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