UN calls for 'firm action' to protect Palestinians’ human rights

The international community must take “firm and principled action” to protect the human rights and dignity of Palestinians, a United Nations official said yesterday.

“Israeli violence, including the deadly raid operations in Jenin refugee camp on 26 January, in the old city of Nablus on 22 February, and Jericho on 1 March have left a devastating toll of 80 Palestinians dead and over 2,000 wounded in less than 90 days,” the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Francesca Albanese, said in an official statement, adding that a total of 13 Israelis were killed by Palestinians during the same period.

Albanese pointed out that Israel’s “deliberate and systematic destruction of homes, civilian infrastructure and property amidst hostile anti-Palestinian rhetoric and declared plans to further annex Palestinian lands” had increased the “sense of despair of the occupied Palestinian population.”

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“The wave of deadly violence sweeping through the occupied West Bank since the beginning of this year is the inexorable consequence of an acquisitive and repressive occupation with no end in sight, and the culture of lawlessness and impunity Israel has nurtured and enjoyed,” she warned.

The UN official explained that the international community’s “lack of meaningful intervention” had led to Israel “consolidating its acquisitive and repressive occupation.”

Albanese noted that the UN member states had offered “little more than symbolic condemnation, humanitarians providing band-aid aid, and legal scholars entangled in theoretical debates,” despite the fact that they had witnessed “decades of record-high numbers of Palestinian deaths and injuries in the occupied territory.”

The humanitarian expert urged UN members “to move beyond simply counting casualties and calling for restraint,” stressing that they must not remain “silent in the face of egregious violations.”

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