Situation in the OPT – Letter from CEIRPP Chairman

GENERAL ASSEMBLY SECURITY COUNCIL

Forty-third session Forty-third year

Item 37 of the preliminary list*

QUESTION OF PALESTINE

Letter dated 3 June 1988 from the Chairman of the

Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights

of the Palestinian People addressed to the Secretary-General

In my capacity as Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, I wish to draw your urgent attention to the conviction by an Israeli court of four Israeli peace activists for meeting with members of the Palestine Liberation Organization in Romania in 1986. According to a report in The New York Times of 3 June 1988, although the two groups met to discuss peace in the Middle East, a magistrate's court in Ramle, Israel, convicted the four under an Israeli law prohibiting contacts with "terrorist groups".  The four Israelis convicted are: Latif Dori and Yael Lotan, who are journalists, Eliezar Feiler, a kibbutz member, and Reuben Kaminer, a peace advocate.

The Committee deplores this development, which confirms that Israel continues to reject all meaningful efforts towards a negotiated, just and peaceful settlement of the Middle East conflict and its core, the question of Palestine.

I wish also to express the Committee's most serious concern at the continued Israeli policy of military repression in the occupied Palestinian territories. Armed force as well as mass arrests and various forms of collective punishment continue to be used indiscriminately against Palestinian civilians, including women and children. According to Reuters and UPI, the death toll has now reached l90 Palestinians killed by gunfire. The New York Times of 3 June 1988 reported that more than 2,000 Palestinians who have not been charged with a crime, given a hearing or even told what offence they have committed, have been imprisoned in a desert prison camp in Ketziot, under inhuman conditions. Thousands more remain imprisoned in Israeli gaols and there have been several reports of ill-treatment of prisoners. Random beatings of Palestinians have continued to take place, according to recent reports by Reuters and UPI, and an incident of four Palestinians being buried under a pile of stones by Israeli soldiers was also reported.

The Committee wishes once again to express its utmost concern at the intensification by Israel, the occupying Power, of its repressive policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territories, which are in contravention of the international human rights instruments, the principles of the Charter and the resolutions of the United Nations as well as the Fourth Geneva Convention. These policies and practices pose further obstacles to international efforts to promote a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the question of Palestine.

The Committee reiterates its appeal to you to intensify your efforts towards the convening of the International Peace Conference on the Middle East in accordance with General Assembly resolution 38/58 C.

I should be grateful if you would have the text of this letter circulated as an official document of the General Assembly under item 37 of the preliminary list, and of the Security Council.

(Signed) Massamba SARRE

Chairman

Committee on the Exercise

of the Inalienable Rights

of the Palestinian People

___________

* A/43/50.