Sabra and Shatila massacres/Petition by Palestinian women – Note verbale from Iraq, letter from PLO

QUESTION OF PALESTINE

THE SITUATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Letter dated 22 October 1982 from the Permanent Representative
of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

I have the honour to transmit herewith a letter dated 22 October 1982 from the Permanent Observer of the Palestine Liberation Organization to the United Nations addressed to Your Excellency.

I would be grateful if you could arrange for this letter to be circulated as a document of the General Assembly under agenda items 31 and 34.

(Signed) Ali A. TREIKI
Permanent Representative

ANNEX

Letter dated 22 October 1982 from the Permanent Observer of
the Palestine Liberation Organization to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

I have the honour to transmit to you; the attached petition dated 24 September 1982 from Palestinian women in the' occupied Palestinian territory.

(Signed) Zuhdi Labib TERZI
Permanent Observer

APPENDIX

Petition dated 24 September 1982 from Palestinian women in the occupied Palestinian territory

Palestinian women in the occupied territory of Palestine have been horrified by the news of the savage collective massacres to which thousands of peaceful citizens – men, women and children – fell victim in the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila at Beirut. These massacres surpassed in their barbarity and ferocity the crimes of the Nazis and the Tartars and made no exception for doctors, nurses and the victims of internationally prohibited murder weapons who were undergoing treatment in hospitals.

Palestinian women, in placing responsibility for this terrifying mass slaughter and these immoral practices on Israel and America, call upon the United Nations to put an immediate end to these successive massacres, to work for the withdrawal of the Israeli invasion forces from Lebanon and to take action, by all means possible, to grant our Palestinian people their just right to establish an independent Palestinian State in their own territory under the leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the sole legitimate representative, internally and externally, of our people, so that such a tragedy will not be repeated in our people's camps here and wherever they are to be found and so that our people will be able to live in security and tranquility. Failing this, the peace and security of our region and of the entire world will never be ensured.

* *** *