Palestine question – Letter from Palestine

ORIGINAL:  ENGLISH

GENERAL ASSEMBLY SECURITY COUNCIL

Fifty-second session Fifty-third year

Agenda items 36, 37 and 87

QUESTION OF PALESTINE

THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO

  INVESTIGATE ISRAELI PRACTICES AFFECTING

  THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE PALESTINIAN

  PEOPLE AND OTHER ARABS OF THE OCCUPIED

  TERRITORIES

Letter dated 14 May 1998 from the Permanent

Observer of Palestine to the United Nations

addressed to the Secretary-General

Today the Palestinian people solemnly commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of al-nakba (the catastrophe), the dispossession of our people and the uprooting of over 750,000 Palestinians from their land and homes.  To mark this day, in the occupied Palestinian territory, including Jerusalem, a million person march was organized throughout all the Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps.

As if the bitterness and pain of the occasion were not enough, the occupying Israeli army opened fire indiscriminately against participants in the march, killing eight people, two of whom were eight-year-old children, and injuring approximately 400 others.  Several of those injured remain in critical condition.  The eight killings were committed in several places in the Gaza Strip, in particular near the illegal settlement of "Gush Katif".  The injuries were widespread throughout the occupied Palestinian territory.  Furthermore, another crime was committed against the holy places in Jerusalem.  Last night a bunch of Israeli fanatics burned Bab Al-Ghawanima, one of the gates of Al-Haram Al-Sharif.  This is yet another in the long history of acts of desecration by Israeli fanatics, which were not prevented by the occupying Israeli authorities.

These crimes, which are typical of the occupying Power and which are now added to the long criminal record of Israeli actions and oppressive measures against the Palestinian people, must be condemned by the international community in the strongest terms.  The world must stop the Israeli Government of Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu before it plunges the region into an even more dire and unstable situation.  The Security Council, as the body responsible for the maintenance of international peace and security, should take action in this regard.

I should be grateful if you would have the text of the present letter distributed as a document of the General Assembly, under items 36, 37 and 87, and of the Security Council.

(Signed)  Nasser AL-KIDWA        

Permanent Observer of Palestine

to the United Nations     

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