Situation in the OPT – Letter from CEIRPP Chairman

GENERAL ASSEMBLY                                       SECURITY COUNCIL

Forty-fourth session                                   Forty-fifth year

Agenda item 39

QUESTION OF PALESTINE

Letter dated 15 February 1990 from the Chairman of the Committee

on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian

People addressed to the Secretary-General

In my capacity as Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, I wish to draw your urgent attention to the ongoing escalation of repression by Israel, the occupying Power, against Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Since my letter to you of 15 January 1990 (A/44/914-S/21089), still more Palestinians, including children, have been killed or injured.  According to a recent report of the DataBase Project on Palestinian Human Rights, 856 Palestinians have been killed between the beginning of the intifadah in December 1987 and 31 January 1990.  Al-Fajr reported on 8 February 1990 that, during the month of January 1990, 23 Palestinians, including 10 children under the age of 18, had been killed by the Israeli army and hundreds injured.

According to a report issued in January by Betzelem, the Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, 136 Palestinian children under 16, including 40 aged 12 years or less, have been killed by the Israeli security forces since the beginning of the intifadah.

Harsh collective punishment continues to be imposed.  Al-Fajr reported on 5 February 1990 that, during the month of January, the military authorities had demolished 60 houses belonging to Palestinians in the occupied territory.  The newspaper also stated that, during the same month, several hundred Palestinians had been detained for varying periods of time.  On 8 February, the daily Ha'aretz announced that in its effort to quell the Palestinian uprising, Israel had recently introduced a new "mechanical slingshot" capable of shooting 600 stones a minute to a distance of 75 metres.

Deeply alarmed at the extreme gravity of these increasing incidents of oppression and the mounting loss of life, the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People deplores once again the repressive policies and practices of Israel, the occupying Power, which are in violation of that country's obligations under the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 and are contrary to the provisions of Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.  The Committee considers that the adoption of urgent measures by the Security Council to provide international protection to Palestinian civilians, as requested by the General Assembly in its resolutions 43/233 of 20 April 1989 and 44/2 of 6 October 1989, is imperative.  The Committee calls upon you and the organizations of the United Nations system to take all necessary measures to alleviate the suffering of the unarmed Palestinians under occupation, especially women and children.

The Committee wishes to stress once again the urgent need to advance towards a comprehensive and just settlement of the question of Palestine in accordance with the principles reaffirmed by the General Assembly in its resolution 44/42 of 6 December 1989, and it reiterates its appeal to you and to all concerned to intensify efforts to attain this essential objective.

I should be grateful if you would have the text of this letter circulated as an official document of the forty-fourth session of the General Assembly, under agenda item 39, and of the Security Council.

              (Signed)  Absa Claude DIALLO     

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