Excellency,

I write once again to urgently draw attention to the deteriorating situation in Occupied Palestine, including East Jerusalem, as Israel, the occupying Power, persists with its aggressions against the Palestinian people in breach of international law, United Nations resolutions and bilateral agreements. While Israeli officials continue spewing hateful and inflammatory rhetoric against our people and leadership in the run up to the Israeli elections, the Israeli Government is intensifying its illegal, repressive measures aimed at proving its brutality against our people in the race for right-wing votes.

Such extremism has heightened insecurity and resulted in the loss of more innocent Palestinian lives, including children. Yet another young boy has been killed by the Israeli occupying forces, which continue using live ammunition against unarmed civilian protesters. On 22 February, as Palestinians in Gaza demonstrated during the 48^th week of the Great March of Return, Yousef Sa’id Al-Daya, age 14, was shot in the chest with live ammunition in another display of excessive and indiscriminate force by the Israeli military, which also caused injury to 115 people, including 16 children, 10 women, a journalist and a paramedic. We call for accountability for his murder and the murders of the hundreds of innocent civilians that have preceded him. The perpetrators of these ruthless crimes cannot go unpunished. [Read more…]

Excellency,

We continue to call on Member States of the United Nations to intensify their efforts, individually and collectively, in line with their obligations under international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, and consistent with the relevant UN resolutions, to hold Israel, the occupying Power, accountable for its violations in Occupied Palestine, including East Jerusalem. In this fifty-second year of the occupation and seventy-one years since the onset of the Al-Nakba, we will not relent in calling for international law to be upheld and for fulfillment of the Palestinian people’s inalienable rights and legitimate national aspirations.

While not possible in the context of these letters to document every single Israeli crime against our people, we will continue to alert the international community as to Israel’s illegal policies and practices in our determined pursuit of international action and measures of accountability to bring an end to this illegal and abhorrent situation.

Accordingly, I must draw attention to the risks of further destabilization of the fragile and tense situation on the ground as the occupying Power is intensifying its provocations, incitement and illegal measures against both the Palestinian people and their leadership. In this regard, the Israeli government has once again decided to seize and withhold Palestinian tax revenues, collected by Israel on behalf of Palestinians in accordance with an agreement between the two sides, in a blatant act of theft and piracy directly intended to undermine the Palestinian leadership and causing harm to Palestinian families. By Israel’s own admission, this illegal withholding of our tax revenues is aimed at among the most vulnerable segments of our society – the families of our thousands of political prisoners and our martyrs – in an attempt to collapse the social safety net provided to these families and to deepen their deprivation and want. [Read more…]

Excellency,

I write to you in follow-up to our numerous letters alerting the international community to the illegal policies and constant incitement by Israel, the occupying Power, against the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. In the recent period, such illegal practices and reckless inflammatory rhetoric and provocations appear to have been deliberately escalated by the occupying Power, exacerbating the insecurity of the Palestinian civilian population, who are being targeted by more and more violence by Israeli military and settler forces, risking innocent lives and further destabilization of the fragile situation on the ground.

We condemn the Israeli occupying forces’ indiscriminate, lethal force against Palestinian civilians, including the latest murders, perpetrated on Friday, 7 February, of two Palestinian children, Hasan Eyad Shalbi, age 13, and Hamza Mohammed Rashdi Ishteiwi, age 17. Both were shot to death with live ammunition, one to the chest and one to the neck, during the Great March of Return protests in the besieged Gaza Strip, and dozens people were injured, adding to the thousands of casualties since these protest began on 30 March 2018.  At the same time, Israeli occupying forces and extremist settlers continue their violent rampages against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, terrorizing the population and causing harm to civilians and destruction of their properties. [Read more…]

Excellency,

I am compelled to write once again as Israeli crimes against the Palestinian civilian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, persist and continue to cause casualties and destruction, including death and injury to innocent civilians. In particular, Israeli settler violence and terror against Palestinians has sharply escalated, heightening the insecurity of our civilian population and further underscoring the need for international protection for them as this illegal occupation becomes only more brutal and extreme with every passing day. [Read more…]

Excellency,

I write to you today to once again to convey our grave concerns about the critical situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. We reiterate our appeal to the international community to give this matter due and urgent attention, as we urged yet again during the recent open debate of the Security Council on 22 January.

As affirmed in the briefing by the United Nations Special Coordinator, Mr. Nikolay Mladenov, and as reflected in reports by OCHA, UNRWA, UNICEF and other UN agencies present on the ground, the start of the new year has witnessed the continued decline of the situation, exacerbating the already dire conditions arrived at by the end of 2018.

In contempt of the Security Council and in breach of its unambiguous obligations under international law, Israel, the occupying Power, continues to escalate its unrelenting barrage of repressive, disparaging, and illegal measures against the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. Such impunity is clearly being emboldened by the failure of the international community to hold Israel accountable for its violations, a failure that has undoubtedly enabled the perpetuation of this illegal, colonial foreign occupation. But this is not a preordained or irreversible situation; the international community can and must uphold international law and ensure accountability aimed at alleviating the plight and suffering of the Palestinian people and ultimately bringing an end to this illegal occupation and historic injustice. [Read more…]

Excellency,

As the Security Council continues to address the Palestine question month after month, amidst constant calls by the international community for responsible action in line with its Charter duties, Israel, the occupying Power, continues to exploit the Council’s inaction with the intensification of its illegal and destructive policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, further destabilizing the situation and further undermining the prospects for a peaceful solution.

Central to the pursuit of the occupation’s illegal agenda has been the use of inflammatory rhetoric and incitement, which persist with alarming intensity. In this regard, it is imperative to draw attention to recent provocative statements made by the director and founder of the Israel Land Fund, Mr. Arieh King, and a so-called “city councilman”. In a public statement on social media, King has called for demolition of parts of the walls of the Old City in Occupied East Jerusalem, constituting yet another of the ongoing, countless attempts by the occupying Power to illegally alter the character, identity and status of the City and entrench its illegitimate control over the entirety of the City. King stated that the removal of these historic walls, built during the time of the Ottoman Empire, would help reconnect the “old city to the rest of the city forever”. Such a statement is not only inflammatory, but stands in violation of international law, including numerous United Nations resolutions from General Assembly resolution 181 (II), Security Council resolution 252 (1968), and onwards up to resolution 2334 (2016) and resolution ES-10/20, and must be firmly denounced and condemned. [Read more…]

Excellency,

I regret to inform you of the further deterioration of the situation in Occupied Palestine due to the violence and terror that continues to be perpetrated by Israel, the occupying Power, against the Palestinian people under its belligerent, illegal occupation. I write to you today in specific to urgently draw the international community’s attention to the dangerous situation unfolding in the besieged Gaza Strip, where once again the Palestinian civilian population is facing the terror and trauma of Israeli military aggression.

On 11 November, an Israeli military so-called “undercover unit”, using a civilian car and dressed as civilians, in violation of the principle of distinction, entered 3km (2 miles) inside the Gaza Strip, invading east of Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip and killing seven Palestinians. This attack has stoked high tensions and provoked yet another cycle of violence between the two sides that risks further escalation and destabilization, jeopardizing the lives of millions of innocent civilians. [Read more…]

Excellency,

The situation in the Occupied State of Palestine, including East Jerusalem, remains extremely volatile as Israel, the occupying Power, persists with its violations of international law, including humanitarian and human rights law, causing the continued deterioration of the situation in all aspects, including the continued suffering of the Palestinian people under its occupation, and further deepening despair and inflaming tensions.

Last week, Israel, the occupying Power, continued with its vicious killing of unarmed, defenseless Palestinian civilians participating in the “Great March of Return” to protest the systematic violation of their human rights, to demand an end to Israeli occupation, siege and dispossession, and to call for independence, freedom and return to their ancestral lands. The total number of Palestinians killed since the March began on 30 March has reached 164, including 23 children.

Moreover, on 10 August, Israeli forces fatally wounded three Palestinian protesters, including Palestinian volunteer medic Abdallah al-Qatati, age 22, as he was treating an injured protester, Ali Said al-Aloul, age 55, who was also shot and killed. Abdallah, like the two other Palestinian medics killed by Israel since the beginning of the Great March of Return protests, was wearing clothes clearly identifying him as medical personnel. [Read more…]

Excellency,

As conditions continue to dangerously deteriorate, I am compelled to write to you once again to draw your attention to the ongoing critical situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and more specifically, to the grave reality faced by Palestinian civilians as a direct result of the Israeli military occupation.

On 8 August, all throughout the night, Israeli occupying forces carried out indiscriminate airstrikes across the besieged Gaza Strip, killing three Palestinians, including a 23-year-old pregnant woman, Inas Khammash, and her 18-month-old toddler, Bayan Khammash, as they were in their home in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. Heavy shelling by Israeli warplanes in various areas in Gaza also resulted in the injury of at least 9 other Palestinians. We condemn in the strongest terms these Israeli military attacks on the densely-populated Gaza Strip, further endangering civilian lives and causing damage and destruction to civilian property, including, inter alia, a cultural center home to the second largest theatre in Gaza. [Read more…]

Excellency,

I write to urgently draw your attention to the critical situation in the Occupied State of Palestine, including East Jerusalem, due to Israel’s endless provocations and illegal actions against the Palestinian people and their holy sites in the Occupied East Jerusalem, particularly Al-Haram Al-Sharif, which houses Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Again, we are witnessing the same provocative actions against the holy sites in Occupied East Jerusalem, by Israel, the occupying Power, which are further fueling already-high tensions and continuing to destabilize the fragile situation on the ground. In this regard, today, Israeli occupying forces violently stormed al-Aqsa Mosque Compound, firing tear gas and stun grenades at Muslim worshipers gathered for Friday prayers, injuring nearly 40 Palestinians, including two of Al-Waqf guards.  In addition, Israeli occupying forces arrested six Palestinians. Moreover, Israel took yet an additional dangerous and condemnable action in which they sealed off Al-Aqsa Mosque with iron chains, preventing Palestinian worshippers from entering to worship, which led to confrontations between Israeli occupying forces and Muslim worshipers. [Read more…]