REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE ISRAELI PRACTICES AFFECTING THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE
AND OTHER ARABS OF THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Report of the Secretary-General
(in pursuance of General Assembly resolution 50/29 A)
1. The present report is submitted in pursuance of General Assembly resolution 50/29 A of 6 December 1995. Paragraph 8 of the resolution reads as follows:
"The General Assembly,
"8. Requests the Secretary-General:
"(a) To provide all necessary facilities to the Special Committee, including those required for its visits to the occupied territories, so that it may investigate the Israeli policies and practices referred to in the present resolution;
"(b) To continue to make available such additional staff as may be necessary to assist the Special Committee in the performance of its tasks;
"(c) To circulate regularly to Member States the periodic reports mentioned in paragraph 6 above;
"(d) To ensure the widest circulation of the reports of the Special Committee and of information regarding its activities and findings, by all means available, through the Department of Public Information of the Secretariat and, where necessary, to reprint those reports of the Special Committee that are no longer available;
"(e) To report to the General Assembly at its fifty-first session on the tasks entrusted to him in the present resolution."
2. All necessary facilities were provided to the Special Committee. Arrangements were made for it to meet in February, June and September 1996. Furthermore, the Special Committee carried out a field mission to Egypt, Jordan and the Syrian Arab Republic in June 1996. Two periodic reports and the twenty-eighth annual report of the Special Committee were circulated to Member States (A/51/99 and Add.1 and 2).
3. Pursuant to paragraph 8 (d) of resolution 50/29 A, the Department of Public Information undertook the following activities:
(a) The Department of Public Information continued to provide press coverage of meetings of the Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories and to feature and distribute United Nations information materials, documents and press releases on the activities of the Special Committee to representatives of non-governmental organizations and to the public at large through the United Nations information centres and services;
(b) In an edition of a booklet published in September 1994 in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Russian and Spanish, under the title The United Nations and the Question of Palestine, the Department devoted a full chapter to human rights in the occupied territories. For the drafting of that chapter, it used materials available in reports of the Special Committee. In a revised edition of the booklet to be published in 1997, the Department will again use materials available in recent reports of the Special Committee;
(c) The Department, both at Headquarters and through the United Nations information centres and services, publicized the Special Committee's 1995 mission to the Middle East.
4. It should be also noted that, on 28 May 1996, the Secretary-General addressed a note verbale to all States drawing attention to resolution 50/29 A to D.
