Illegal Israeli actions in OPT – Letter from Palestine

Identical letters dated 2 March 2001 from the Permanent Observer

of Palestine to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

and the President of the Security Council

Israel, the occupying Power, continues with its bloody military campaign against the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem. Four more Palestinian civilians, including two children, died today as a result of shootings by the Israel occupying forces. One of the martyrs was a nine-year old boy, who was shot while playing with a group of children beneath his family’s apartment in Al-Bireh. The other child was a 13-year-old boy, who was shot on Tuesday, 27 February, and died from the wounds he had sustained.

Commenting on one of those killed today, the spokesman for the Israeli army said: “Soldiers saw a man who was preparing to detonate a bomb and shot him, killing him instantly.” This frequent, false justification for killings used by the Israeli army once again proved to be a lie. The man turned out to be a poor, mentally ill person, savagely shot by the soldiers in Gaza, who riddled his body with dart-like projectiles. According to hospital officials and paramedics, he was shot in the skull, spine and other parts of the body with more than a dozen projectiles of this unknown ammunition.

In another brutal action on 27 February, the Israeli occupying forces killed a Palestinian man, who was sitting in his home in Al-Bireh, with a direct hit by tank shell. Such criminal Israeli behaviour and all other grave breaches of the fourth Geneva Convention and violations of instruments of international law being committed by Israel, the occupying Power, must be urgently brought to an end. The international community, represented by the United Nations, bears a clear responsibility in ending this Israeli military campaign and providing protection to the Palestinian civilians.

Since 18 December 2000, the day the Security Council failed to adopt a draft resolution that would have led to the establishment of a United Nations force of military and police observers to be dispatched throughout the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, 62 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured, many critically and permanently. Some of those lives surely could have been saved had the Council undertaken its responsibilities and acted on that day. We call upon the Council to take the necessary action with regard to the establishment of the force, thus contributing to halting the bloodshed and hopefully breathing life into the Middle East peace process.

In follow-up of my previous letters to you, dated from 29 September 2000 to 27 February 2001 (A/55/432-S/2000/921; A/55/437-S/2000/930; A/55/450-S/2000/957; A/55/466-S/2000/971; A/55/474-S/2000/984; A/55/490-S/2000/993; A/ES-10/39-S/2000/1015; A/ES-10/40-S/2000/1025; A/ES-10/42-S/2000/1068; A/ES-10/43-S/2000/1078; A/ES-10/44-S/2000/1093; A/ES-10/45-S/2000/1104; A/ES-10/46-S/2000/1107; A/ES-10/47-S/2000/1116; A/ES-10/48-S/2000/1129; A/ES-10/49-S/2000/1154; A/ES-10/50-S/2000/1173; A/ES-10/51-S/2000/1185; A/ES-10/52-S/2000/1215; A/ES-10/53-S/2000/1247; A/ES-10/54-S/2001/7;A/ES-10/55-S/2001/33; A/ES/10/56-S/2001/50, A/ES-10/57-S/2001/101; A/ES-10/58-S/2001/131 A/ES-10/59-S/2001/156 and A/ES-10/60-S/2001/175), I am enclosing in the annex to the present letter the names of the five Palestinian martyrs killed since my last letter. The killing of these 5 civilians brings the total number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli occupying forces since 29 September 2000 to 366 martyrs.

I would be grateful if you would arrange to have the text of the present letter and its annex distributed as a document of the tenth emergency special session of the General Assembly and of the Security Council.

(Signed) Nasser Al-Kidwa

Ambassador

Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations

Annex to the identical letters dated 2 March 2001 from the Permanent Observer

of Palestine to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

and the President of the Security Council

Names of martyrs killed by Israeli security forces in the

Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem

(Tuesday, 27 February, through Friday, 2 March 2001)

Tuesday, 27 February 2001

Na’im Ahmed Al-Badareen

Friday, 2 March 2001

1. Ubay Darraj (9 years old)

2. Mohammed Mahmoud Hellis (13 years old, from wounds sustained on 27 February)

3. Mustafa Al-Ramlawi

4. Abdel Karim Issa

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