Thank you Chairperson for giving us the floor.
We thank the High Commissioner for Human Rights for her report. We are dismayed that on the whole nothing of any significance has changed for the better in the human rights situation of the Palestinians during the reported period. It is incomprehensible to us that for these many years, in spite of numerous clear resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council, as well by the Human Rights Council and those of other bodies of the UN system, that Israel is able to not only allowed to continue its occupation of the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
On the contrary, Israel has tightened its stranglehold on the Palestinian population further, particularly in Gaza against which it maintains a brutal blockade, and launches military attacks on the population at will. It continues to enlarge the illegal settlements in the West Bank and continues the illegal construction of the separation wall on Palestinian land. It pursues in changing the landscape and demographic composition of East Jerusalem, where it continues its demolitions of Palestinian houses and evictions of Palestinians from their homes. It defies international human rights and humanitarian law with impunity.
We fully support the High Commissioner’s recommendations, but are disappointed by the absence of any recommendations for concrete actions that would allow for the realization of the recommendations in the Goldstone report. We therefore call on the Human Rights Council that in accepting these recommendations it formulates concrete recommendations for actions by the UN and its member states to end Israel’s violations of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.
Thank you, Chairperson.