Situation in the OPT/Electric Company – PLO letter – Letter from Tunisia

LETTER DATED 25 JANUARY 1980 FROM THE PERMANENT

REPRESENTATIVE OF TUNISIA TO THE UNITED NATIONS

ADDRESSED TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECURITY

COUNCIL

I have the honour to transmit to you herewith a letter from the Permanent Observer for the Palestine Liberation Organization.

I should be grateful if you would have it circulated as a Security Council document.

(Signed) M’Hamed ESSAAFI

    Ambassador

Permanent Representative

Annex

Letter dated 21 January 1980 from the Permanent Observer

of the Palestine Liberation Organization to the United

Nations addressed to the President of the Security

Council

Upon instructions of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, I have the honour to refer to Security Council resolution 446 and to advise you of an ominous development which has taken place recently on the occupied Palestinian lands of the West Bank.

In the final days of 1979, the Israeli Government notified the Palestinian owned East Jerusalem Electric Company of its decision to take control of that utility in one year’s time, on January 1, 1981.

This decision, which is an obvious attempt to cut Jerusalem off materially from the rest of the West Bank and to tighten the Zionist grip on the occupied territories, constitutes a deliberate act of aggression against the Palestinian people.  Moreover, it brings with it the threat of Israeli domination over the electrical supplies for Jerusalem’s sacred places, including the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Resurrection as well as the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

This unconscionable decision has been denounced by Palestinians in the occupied territories, including the 450 Palestinian workers at the company, as well as the company’s board of directors which has rejected the notice and lodged a formal protest.

The announcement of the Israeli decision to seize that company has caused a worsening of the atmosphere of tension and enmity in the occupied territories.  I am requesting to seek you intervention to prevent the seizure by the Zionist government of East Jerusalem Electric Company, an illegal action, which would seriously aggravate those tensions and which would constitute a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a contravention of the resolutions of the United Nations.

(Signed) Zehdi Labib TERZI

   Permanent Observer

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