QNA/New York

 

The State of Qatar has urged the United Nations Security Council to adopt a resolution calling on Israel to immediately stop its attacks in the Gaza Strip and allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to affected civilians.

This came in a statement of Qatar delivered by the State’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations,  Sheikha Alia Ahmed bin Seif al-Thani, before the Security Council Open Debate on the Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestine question. 

Qatar has stressed its solidarity with the Palestinian people in their legitimate struggle and welcomed the international efforts aimed at reaching a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. 

Sheikha Alia said that the past few days have witnessed savage atrocities wreaked by the Israeli aggression on the besieged Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. She referred to the continuing Israeli massacres of innocent civilians, and the most recent one Shejaiya in which majority of victims were children.

“We condemn all acts of aggression committed by Israel which is a flagrant violation of the international law of human rights and the international humanitarian law,” she said.

Sheikha Alia pointed out that the Israeli aggression on Gaza cannot be considered an act of defence by the Israeli people as hundreds of civilians, children, women and elderly have been killed.

“These attacks will push everyone to confrontation, and thus, every effort to reach peace in this region will be undermined and the desired security will not be achieved”, she said, stressing that those who consider that the Israeli attack on Gaza is a just punishment for the murder of the three Israeli settlers don’t have a legal basis or logical justification.

Instead of the attacks, she said Israeli authorities should conduct a legal investigation to find those responsible for the crime as the incident occurred in an area under Israeli control.

Qatar’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations added that similarly, Israel, as the occupying power and under international law, should punish those responsible for settlers’ crimes against unarmed Palestinians, and therefore what is going on against the Palestinian people in Gaza is an act of revenge, collective punishment, state terrorism and disproportionate use of force.

She emphasised that the Israeli attacks are unacceptable and require a clear position of the UN Security Council, especially as the number of victims and the injured is increasing rapidly.  

Sheikha Alia stressed that what is happening in Gaza is not in response to alleged terrorism, saying that resisting the occupation is not terrorism and the Palestinian people are not a group of terrorists, but they are steadfast people who insist on restoration of their usurped rights.

She noted that efforts exerted by the international community over the past decades to reach a just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis have been undermined by the Israeli side which today poses a real obstacle to peace.

Sheikha Alia said that Israel is responsible for the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, the suffocating siege which affects more than a million Palestinians, the continuation of the occupation which has made Gaza a big prison without basic necessities of life, the breach of the Armistice Agreement signed in Cairo in 2012 and the prisoners exchange agreement and the prevention of Palestinian tax money.

She stressed the need to hold those responsible accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip.

Qatar, she said, is sparing no effort to achieve a just and comprehensive peace and its government and people will continue to support the Palestinian people in their legitimate struggle.

She mentioned that the leadership of the State of Qatar has participated in the international efforts in this regard.

Sheikha Alia noted that the UN Security Council has a special responsibility in this regard, which requires it to adopt a resolution demanding Israel’s immediate cessation of attacks, put an end to the violence, and allow the delivery of necessary humanitarian aid to civilians affected in the Gaza Strip, provide a sustainable solution to the humanitarian disaster in Gaza, open sea and land ports, repair the infrastructure and deliver salaries owed to the employees in the Gaza Strip.

 

 

 

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