Illegal Israeli actions in OPT – Letter from Palestine

Identical letters dated 10 October 2003 from the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council

  As it continues carrying out its military campaign on all levels against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, Israel, the occupying Power, continues to wilfully kill Palestinian civilians and to destroy Palestinian land and properties. Today, just after midnight (Palestine time), the Israeli occupying forces carried out an intense raid deep into the Rafah refugee camp in the Occupied Gaza Strip. During this raid, the occupying forces, using machine gun fire and helicopter missile fire, killed seven Palestinians, including two children. Those two children were an 8-year-old boy, Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Qarynawi, and a 12-year-old boy, Sami Talal Salah.

  In addition to those killed, at least 50 other Palestinians were wounded by the occupying forces, with most of the casualties occurring when a missile was fired from a helicopter gunship at a crowd of civilians. The high number of casualties overwhelmed the local Najar Hospital in Rafah, which did not have enough medicine or supplies to treat all of the wounded. Moreover, the many seriously wounded victims could not be transferred to other hospitals because of the continuing imposition of restrictions on movement imposed by the Israeli occupying forces in the area.

  At the same time, as noted above, the Israeli occupying forces continued the barbaric practice of demolishing Palestinian homes and razing and destroying Palestinian land. Such illegal practices have been carried out as a form of collective punishment of the Palestinian people and also as part of Israel’s ongoing campaign of settler colonialism and its building of the expansionist conquest wall in the Occupied Territory in flagrant violation of international law, including international humanitarian law. In this regard, in Gaza today at least three homes were bulldozed by the occupying forces. These demolitions follow the dozens of other demolitions carried out by the occupying forces throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory in the four weeks since my last letter to you, including the bulldozing of 13 buildings in the Gaza Strip on 1 October. In addition, during the numerous raids carried out, the occupying forces continued to arrest and detain more Palestinians. Currently, more than 6,000 Palestinians, including children and women, are being illegally detained or imprisoned by the occupying Power.

  As the death toll continues to rise almost daily and the destruction continues to mount, the humanitarian crisis being endured by the Palestinian people also continues to intensify. Faced with the continuing suffocating restrictions imposed by Israel on the movement of persons and goods, including medical and humanitarian, the socio-economic conditions of the Palestinian people continue to deteriorate, further deepening their suffering and hardships. Such relentless and continuing violations by the occupying Power of the human rights of the Palestinian people and of all norms and principles of international law have seriously exacerbated the already critical and unstable situation on the ground after more than three years since the onset of the second Palestinian intifada and Israel’s vicious military campaign to crush it.

  This letter is in follow-up to our previous 173 letters to you regarding the ongoing crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, since 28 September 2000. These letters, dated from 29 September 2000 (A/55/432-S/2000/921) to 10 September 2003 (A/ES-10/236-S/2003/874), constitute a basic record of the crimes committed by the Israeli occupying forces against the Palestinian people since September 2000. For all of these war crimes, State terrorism and systematic human rights violations committed against the Palestinian people, Israel, the occupying Power, must be held accountable and the perpetrators must be brought to justice.

  Accordingly, in follow-up to the above-mentioned letters, it is my regret to inform you that, since my last letter, at least 34 Palestinians, including several children, have been killed by the Israeli occupying forces, raising the total number of martyrs to 2,567 Palestinians. (The names of the martyrs that have been identified thus far are contained in the annex to the present letter.)

  I would be grateful if you would arrange to have the text of the present letter and its annex distributed as a document of the tenth emergency special session of the General Assembly under item 5, and of the Security Council. 

(Signed) Nasser Al-Kidwa
Ambassador
Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations

Annex to the identical letters dated 10 October 2003 from the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council

Names of martyrs killed by Israeli occupying forces in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem*

(Saturday, 13 September 2003, to Friday, 10 October 2003)

    Saturday, 13 September 2003

 1.   Fathi Mahmoud Hussein Bulbul
 2.  Mahmoud Ahmed Nasr Issa
 3.  Mohammed Shukri Khalil Al-‘Assi
 4.   Ahmed Ghaleb Saida Tahaineh (17 years old)

    Sunday, 14 September 2003

  Ahmed Nayef Taha Abu Latifah (12 years old)

    Tuesday, 16 September 2003

 Ahmed Fawzi Abu Doosh 

    Wednesday, 17 September 2003

 Fadi Kamal Saleh Abu Zunt 

    Thursday, 18 September 2003

 Jihad Izzat Salem Abu Sweireh

    Monday, 22 September 2003

 1.  Basel Shafiq Al-Qawasmi
 2.   Shadi Awni Mansour (16 years old)

    Tuesday, 23 September 2003

 Marwan Ahmed Al-Najjar 

    Wednesday, 24 September 2003

  Mohammed Issa Hamdan (16 years old)

    Thursday, 25 September 2003

 1.   Dina Hassan Issa (3 years old)

 2.  Mohammed Basheer Aqel

 3.  Mohammed Abdelnabi Abu Ormaneh

 4.   Riyab Abdelrahim Abdelaziz Talahmeh

 5.   Ibrahim Khalil Tawfik Abu Al-Rab (died from wounds sustained on 19 September)
 6.   Izzat Salem Abu Sweireh (died from wounds sustained on 18 September)
 7.  Mazen Yousef Salameh Mubarak
 8.  Rabah Ibrahim Abu Dakkeh

    Thursday, 2 October 2003

 Selim Mohammed Al-Bayoumi 

    Saturday, 4 October 2003

 1.   Mohammed Abdelqader Al-Badrsawi (1 year old) (died from wounds sustained on 1 October)

 2.  Saeed Mohammed Suleiman
 3.   Mohammed Ayman Yousef Barahmeh (9 years old)
 4.   Sarhan Burhan Hussein Sarhan

   Sunday, 5 October 2003

 Saeed Hussein Abu Azzoum 

    Thursday, 9 October 2003

 Fadi Omar Samahneh (17 years old)

    Friday, 10 October 2003

 1.  Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Qarynawi (8 years old)
 2.   Sami Talal Salah (12 years old)
 3.  Mohammed Fathi Abdelwahab
 4.  Nader Selim Abu Taha
 5.   Mohammed Ahmed Yunis
 6.  Ala’a Noman Mansour
 7.  Atwa Abu Muhsen

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 *   The total number of Palestinian martyrs killed by Israeli occupying forces since 28 September 2000 is 2,567.

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