Mideast situation/Palestine question – GA special session debate – Verbatim record (excerpts)

Official Records

General Assembly

Twenty-fifth special session

5th meeting

Friday, 8 June 2001, 9 a.m. 

New York

    The meeting was called to order at 9 a.m.

/…

Agenda items 8, 9 and 10 (continued)

Review and appraisal of progress made in the implementation of the Habitat Agenda

Further actions and initiatives for overcoming obstacles to the implementation of the Habitat Agenda

Declaration on cities and other human settlements in the new millennium 

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 The Acting President ( spoke in Arabic ): I give the floor to His Excellency Mr. Adlan El Siddig Elkhalifa, Secretary-General of the National Council for Physical Development, Ministry of the Environment and Physical Development of the Sudan.

  Mr. El Siddig Elkhalifa (Sudan) (spoke in Arabic ): …

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  Regarding the fulfilment of our national objectives to create adequate shelter for all of our citizens, we recognize that future prospects for the development of human settlements will depend on future economic conditions. The implementation of the Habitat objectives should not be disregarded in the consideration of oppressed peoples, particularly the Palestinian people, who have been struggling under Israeli occupation for a very long time now, and this is why we appeal to the international community to support the Palestinian people in their struggle for peace and safe living conditions.

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 The Acting President (spoke in Arabic) : I give the floor to Mr. Jamal Al-Bader, representative of Qatar. 

  Mr. Al-Bader (Qatar) (spoke in Arabic ): …

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  The draft declaration to be adopted at the end of this session states that

    “We further resolve to seriously address the challenges posed by wars, conflicts, refugees and human-made disasters on human settlements, and commit ourselves through enhanced international cooperation mechanisms to support post-conflict and post-disaster countries, with special emphasis on the provision of shelter and other basic services, particularly to vulnerable groups, refugees and internally displaced persons, as well as to facilitate restoring security of tenure and property rights.” ( A/S-25/2, sect. VII.C, decision 2/1, para. 53)

  In this context, I wish to recall the situation of the displaced Palestinian people, whose lands in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been occupied by Israel since 1967. Their circumstances are very germane to the issue of adequate housing under discussion. Illegal settlements are being built on the occupied territories, further exacerbating the already complex problem in the Middle East. We therefore call on Israel to halt the building of settlements so that everyone throughout the region can live in security, stability and peace.

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  The Acting President (spoke in Arabic): I now give the floor to His Excellency Mr. Ahmed El-Atrash, Chairman of the delegation of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

 Mr. El-Atrash (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) (spoke in Arabic) : …

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  Yesterday, the representative of the Zionist entity launched an indiscriminate attack, using hateful language about “terrorism” and accusing the victims themselves of being terrorists — while it is his Zionist entity that is based on State terrorism. It is there that weapons of mass destruction and settler policies are used. Let me remind the representative of the Zionist entity of the massacres his country has committed. Perhaps he will recall the destruction of the King David Hotel and the Deir Yassin, Sabra and Shatilla and Qana massacres. To date, his country has refused to provide compensation for the victims of those massacres. That is in addition, of course, to the Zionist entity’s scorched earth policy, as epitomized by the killing of children, women and old people and by the destruction of houses, farmland and infrastructure in order to replace the original inhabitants with new settlers. That is why we were extremely surprised to hear that representative say what he said.

  Since we want to support Habitat and United Nations principles, we invite the international community to take the necessary steps to help put an end to the Israeli occupation of occupied Palestine, including Holy Quds, and to provide the Palestinian people with the assistance it requires for implementation of the Istanbul Declaration.

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 The meeting rose at 1.25 p.m .

This record contains the text of speeches delivered in English and of the interpretation of speeches delivered in the other languages. Corrections should be submitted to the original languages only. They should be incorporated in a copy of the record and sent under the signature of a member of the delegation concerned to the Chief of the Verbatim Reporting Service, room C-178. Corrections will be issued after the end of the session in a consolidated corrigendum.