Report of the Special Committee on the Charter of the United Nations and on the Strengthening of the Role of the Organization - A/80/33, A/80/151, A/80/210 Report of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law on the work of its fifty-eighth session - A/80/17
🇮🇱 Israel, 🇮🇷 Islamic Republic of Iran, 🇴🇲 Oman, 🇵🇸 State of Palestine, 🇱🇧 Lebanon
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, time and again we are astonished by the continual politicization of this room to repeatedly raise the same empty false accusations. The same delegation, today, the Arab group, the Palestinians, and the Iranian regime continue to abuse every agenda item in this respected legal forum as an opportunity to promote the neopolitical agendas. To my Lebanese colleague, let me just say take care of Hezbollah's presence in southern Lebanon, dismantle its military capabilities, and the situation will improve. I can promise you. As such, if delegations wish to repeat time and again the same falsities at every occasion, wasting our time exhausting the forum and prolonging our discussion, unfortunately, we're compelled to continue to repeat the same reply as to remind this STEAM forum of the reality of the situation off the ground. I exercise our right of reply on Friday, and I will do it again, now and again until something will change. Need I once again remind you and remind you also, the members of the Arab Group, some of which are big supporters of the Korrent Agreement, that the ceasefire was in place for over a week in Gaza. A ceasefire that Hamas threatened with its blatant violations of the agreement. Yesterday, October 19th, Hamas fired an anti tank missile and gunfire at the IDF soldiers who were east of the yellow line, which, in accordance with the agreement, is an Israeli controlled area. Two IDF soldiers were killed and another three were injured. Israel's military actions were taken in response to this blatant violation of the ceasefire. Today, October 20th, terrorists crossed the yellow line in the Sajayia area twice, posting an immediate threat to the IDF soldiers. Israel cannot and will not just sit by, while its soldiers are targeted and will respond to take to these attacks firmly. Let me say it again. Hamas attacked IDF troops operating in accordance with the ceasefire agreement. Hamas attacked IDF troops operating in accordance with the ceasefire agreement. Sorry. Hamas executed Palestinians in the streets of Gaza. Hamas violates the ceasefire time and again. In the meantime, Israel is working and has doubled the humanitarian aid entering into Gaza. Hamas is the one who is still holding the remains of the 16 falling hostages. According to the terms of the agreement, Hamas has had to return all the bodies of Israeli hostages within 72 hours and to maintain the ceasefire. Yet, these terrorists chose to violate both conditions again, a blatant violation of international law and the ceasefire agreement. But it is not just Hamas. The Palestinian Authority never stopped its pay for slay policy. The Palestinian Authority is currently making additional payments to the terrorists who were released as part of the agreement. This must stop now. Hamas cannot be a part of the future of Gaza. It must go. Mr. Chair, time and again, we are astonished to see the failure to acknowledge the responsibility of Palestinian terrorist organizations, notably Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, for the countless victims of their terrorist attack. Moreover, the speakers in this room have repeatedly misrepresented reality and outright lie, distorting the facts of the ground in blatant attempts to delegitimize of all intents and purposes demonize Israel. We compelled to once again set the record straight. Israel is engaged in a war which is neither initiated nor thought for the purpose of protecting itself and its citizens against those who seek its destructions, against those who seek its destruction. Israel's war was, is and will be only with Hamas and other terrorist groups, not against civilians, and we will have take and we have taken significant steps to minimize civilian casualties. Hamas is the one who is now threatening and torturing and executing innocent Palestinian civilians in the streets. On the contrary, Israel has constantly cooperated in facilitating humanitarian aid in order to alleviate the suffering of the civilians who are tragically affected by this conflict. This is not the place to address each of these false and harmful allegations, nor is it a place to raise them. However, we are prepared to refute them in details in the appropriate forum. The focus of international forum that take pride in their dedication to impartial justice should be on Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, and the Iranian regime and its trust and its terrorist proxies, rather than on those that seek to protect themselves from attacks by these groups. While I did not wish to participate in yet another session deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, since I'm compelled to do so, let me be clear. The true threat to peace and security and to the UN Charter is a threat of terrorism committed by the Palestinian terrorist groups and the Iranian regime. The most effective way to protect both Palestinian and Israelis from the threat is through the eradication of this terrorist threat. Make no mistake. And if we want to future discuss issues which are out of context uh and if we want to further discuss issues which are out of the context of these agenda items, Hamas and its sponsors, including the Iranian regime, are the ones responsible for the situation in Gaza. Hamas is the one who cowardly fights from within dense urban populations, uses civilians as human shields, and is consequently directly responsible for the destruction in Gaza. Hamas is the one who's still holding the remains of the sixteen fallen hostages in Gaza, a bladed violation of international law and the agreement that was reached on this matter. We call and demand their immediate release. We will continue to remind you of the reality of the situation and when delegation chose to perpetuate falsehood. We will rise above act of hatred and current and cruelty that seeks to break our spirits, and we will prevail. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Of course, as I mentioned before, the Walker and Baseless statement of the Israeli regime delegation does not deserve any response. And everyone knows their true criminal nature. Now they're speaking of fighting terrorism why their regime is the biggest terrorist regime and entity in the whole world. They are claiming they're fighting against terrorism while they have bloods of 18,000 of children under hands, including Palestinian children and Iranian children, on their horrendous hand. They are killing people. Time and again with with misuse of information and communication technologies with lethal weapons. They are true the true sponsor of terrorism incarnated into a systematic uh an entity with systematic history of occupation and apartheid. The committee observes that the delegation of the terrorist regime of Israel trying to whitewash the horrendous crimes of its regime has has no choice but to spread lies and hatred in the United Nations. The vulgarity and insolence that the delegation of the Israeli regime always demonstrate is not a surprise at all. Such behavior truly fits the genocidal terrorist regime that has bloods of thousands of children and women on its hands. The deception and lies of the Israeli regime are ineffective. Over the past two years, the world, the General Assembly, the International Court of Justice, and this committee has have been witnessing in anguish and anger the extent of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the Israeli regime in the region. Where it has killed and injured thousands of people, targeted hospitals, schools, including against my country, killed UN staff and other humanitarian personnel. And I shall quote the uh statement of the UN Security Council referring to the unfortunate fact that the Israeli regime has killed more than 200 United Nations personnel, in which, as the UN Security Council Security General mentioned, is the highest death toll in human history. And now they're displacing millions and using and inducing starvation as a method of warfare, killing desperate civilians awaiting basic humanitarian assistance, including food and water. Indeed, the attention of this committee could not be deflected by the falsehood and disinformation propagated by the Israeli regime. In addition to civilians, civilian properties are also the main targets of the Israeli regime. These criminal acts are, among others, evident in the regime's horrendous crimes in June this year against my country, killing and injuring Iranian civilian persons, including women and children, journalists and humanitarian personnel, targeting residential areas, Hakim Children's Hospital in Tehran, Farabi Rehabilitation Hospital in Kerman Shah, the Iranian Red Cures and Society building, medical ambulances. These are only few instances of the brutality and gross violation of international humanitarian law by the rogue Israeli regime. As for the catastrophic situation in Palestine, I would only quote a report from World Health Organization. I quote, at least 94% of all hospitals in Gaza Strip are damaged or destroyed. End of quote. This is what the Israeli regime, genocidal regime, means by fighting terrorism. The Israeli regime is indeed a serious threat to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and to the principle of humanity and to children, among others. It is a serious threat to the purposes and principles of the Charter, as I mentioned, and needs to be held fully accountable by the international community. And we witnessed that they openly and brazenly just today threatened Lebanon in the sixth committee. And it shows the the extent of their brazen uh acts of terrorism and aggression against sovereign member states. The international community must act now. As you're witnessing, they are emboldened by the acquiescence of the Security Council. Now is the time to stop the ongoing genocide in the region being committed in the hands of the genocidal Israeli terrorist regime. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Arab Group would like to express its regret to the reply of Israel, which includes baseless uh allegations and attempts to distort facts and insert issues that have nothing to do with the item under discussion that is on the promoting the role of the UN and uh the principles of its charter. The Arab group states that uh the You uh the provisions of the charter require all to respect the sovereignty and to um refrain from using threat or uh the threat the use of force force against against any uh sovereign party. Uh regrettably, this uh party that talks about the violations is the one that violates the rules by its continued occupation of Arab uh territories and its practices that run counter to the provisions of law and UN Charter. In this connection, the Arab group reiterates that upholding the main principles of the Charter is the only means to ensure international peace and security. Respecting these principles cannot be achieved by justifying the policies of the occupation or running away from international obligations, but it will be achieved by uh the full uh implementation of UN resolutions. The Arab Group reiterates its full commitment to international efforts aiming to promote the role of organization in preventing conflicts and uh resolving them peacefully and achieving international justice and building international system based on uh rule of law and equality among all states without uh exception. Thank you, mister Chair. The uh distinguished representative of Oman exercising her right of reply also on behalf of the Arab Group. I have another request for right of reply from the distinguished representative of the state of Palestine. Before giving her the floor, I just want again to remind uh delegations that uh we stick to the uh time limit as stated in the uh rules of procedure, and certainly uh to try and limit our replies to be as brief as possible. You have the floor.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. In his right of reply, the Israeli delegate demonstrated yet again the most outrageous expression of racism and supremacy, further reinforcing the genocidal logics ingrained in Israel's illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territory and the violations of the charter that he's trying to deny. And we can see the frustration of the Israeli delegate. He's being forced to sit in a room discussing the Yuan Charter while his representatives literally and figuratively shredded the charter and declared the Secretary General Persona Nangrata and killed over 400 of Yuan staff. He is trying to intimidate delegations into silence using the same bullying tactics that the world has endured for years. And we see him flustered trying to defend a state that is standing trial for genocide before the ICJ, and whose officials are internationally wanted fugitives for war crimes and crimes against humanity before the ICC. The Israeli delegate called the violations of the state he represents, as stated by the International Court of Justice, the highest judicial organ, lies and falsehood, and he insisted that there has been a ceasefire for more than a week. Israel has violated ceasefire every day since. It repeatedly is shooting at Palestinian civilians, destroying Palestinian infrastructure and carrying out large-scale bombing raids. And Israel wants the world to congratulate it for killing Palestinians at less and slower pace than before, from 100 Palestinians average a day to 50. Israel wants the world to congratulate it for being forced to starve Palestinian less by resorting to calculating the calories needed for mercy survival rather than intensifying the famine. And it wants the world to overlook the horrific images of the bodies of our captives returned in body bags, unidentified bodies, returned without heads, limbs, missing eyes, showing signs of extreme torture, bound hands and foot. Burnmarks, crushed by tanks, executed at Point Blanc, and starved, or the at least ten thousand bodies who remain under the rubble. Since the ceasefire declared, Israel has killed over 97 Palestinians in Gaza, including over two Palestinians in the West Bank, including a nine-year-old Muhammad al-Halak, a child who was shot dead while playing football in Hebron. It unleashed its settlers to carry out attacks on Palestinian farmers in the West Bank. And just two days ago, Israel bombed a van carrying families in Gaza, killing over 11 civilians, including seven children, aged 13, 10, 6, 5, 10, 12, and 8. If a van carrying Israeli civilians was bombed, resulting in the killing of Israeli children, would the Israeli delegate come here and claim there is a ceasefire? It is a ceasefire when Palestinians are killed. Our killing has become cotodian, part and parcel of Israel's reign of supremacy, normalized to an extent that the Israeli representative takes pride and comfort in insisting that there is a ceasefire, that his state is not violating when the state he represents continues to kill children and steal lands, and in the same breath declare it a war when Israelis are killed. Your presence in our land is illegal. Israel's occupation is illegal. Its genocide is prohibited. And the Israeli delegate has no standing to talk about the charter, and no amount of bullying will hide the reality of what Israel is an illegal occupant, apartheid regime committing a genocide. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. This really confirms what most of us uh have been saying for for years now that we come, we speak the language of the law, we speak the language of internationally recognized institutions, we try to call out violations of international law. So we try to stick to the law because the law is grounded in in reality and real facts. And again, we are in response, we are confronted with inflammatory rhetoric, as we can see, and continuous threats. So not only outside of these chambers, but also also within uh these walls. And I think this this says it all. I will I will stop here. Thank you very much.
Verbatim from the transcript. A reply is identified from its own words, the Chair's grant, or its place in the right-of-reply sequence; delegations and addressees follow the transcript's attribution.