Human rights situation in the OPT – CHR – Letter from Palestine

QUESTION OF THE VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE

OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES, INCLUDING PALESTINE

Letter dated 19 August 2002 from the Permanent Observer for Palestine

to the United Nations Office at Geneva addressed to the United Nations 

High Commissioner for Human Rights

Please find herewith enclosed* for information memorandums issued by the Palestinian National Authority on the Israeli daily aggressions against the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories, for the period from Sunday 11 to Sunday 18 August 2002, all of which constitute violations of human rights and grave violations categorized according to international humanitarian law as war crimes and crimes against humanity, particularly the continued Israeli acts of deliberate killing, house demolitions, besieging Palestinian towns, villages and camps, imposing collective punishments, severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinians and a suffocating curfew which obviously endangers the lives of thousands of Palestinian civilians who are denied access to food, water, medicine and even to hospitals for getting urgent treatment.

In this respect, the Palestinian Ministry of Health issued two days ago an appeal to the world humanitarian organizations, affirming that as a result of these Israeli practices, the Palestinian society in the West Bank and Gaza is threatened with a definite humanitarian catastrophe, as many Palestinians are suffering from anaemia due to the lack of food, and widespread epidemics among Palestinians, mainly among children, due to the lack of medicine and appropriate vaccines.

I would be most grateful if you could have this note and its enclosure distributed to the members of the Commission on Human Rights, as an official document of the fifty-ninth session of the Commission.

(Signed ) Nabil RAMLAWI

Ambassador

Permanent Observer

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* Reproduced as received, in the language of submission only.

[ecn4-03G3.pdf]