UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People called on the international community to double efforts so as to put an end to Israeli occupation of Palestine.
This came in a ceremony held on Friday by the committee to commemorate Palestine Nakba took place in 1948 for the second year in a row.
In a speech, Cheikh Niang, Permanent Representative of Senegal to the United Nations in New York and chair of the Committee, said what has witnessed over the past seven months, most of which was broadcast all over the world, is unparalleled in recent history.
“Today, we again commemorate the events of 1948 and subsequent years, which led to the dispossession and displacement of approximately 750,000 Palestinians from their ancestral lands,” he said.
Niang added “we” have witnessed Israeli occupation of Palestine, confiscating Palestinian property, arbitrary detention of Palestinians, including children, and brutal use of power, referring that today’s Nakba is a repetition of 1948 Na
kba.
He noted that violating norms by one group does not justify breaching international laws and norms by another. He went to say this is a “dark time” for international justice and accountability under international law as well as international system based on rules that this organization was founded to support.
He further stressed the need of respecting the norms established for the world’s countries, referring that these rules apply to everyone and that none is above law.
Niang also appealed to international community to double efforts in order to achieve inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including the right to self-determination and independence, and reaching a just solution to the crisis of Palestinian refugees.
The committee will continue working to help Palestinian people enjoy their inalienable rights and live in a state of their own in peace and prosperity, he emphasized.
Meanwhile, Palestinian representative to the UN Riyad Mansour said in his speech commemorating this anniversary
comes at a time when one of the most horrific chapters of this ongoing Nakba is taking place.
“The Nakba is an enterprise of displacement and replacement of people that continues to this very day,” he said, Mansour pointed out that the occupation government no longer hides its true intentions, referring that Palestinians have three options: Displacement, oppression, or death.
He highlighted that people in Gaza are besieged, bombed, and starved with one goal which is either to destroy them or displace them from Gaza.
“It is time for accountability and justice so freedom and peace can be achieved,” he declared.
Source: Kuwait News Agency