Situation in the OPT/Schoolgirls – Letter from Israel

LETTER DATED 5 APRIL 1983 FROM THE PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF ISRAEL TO

THE UNITED NATIONS ADDRESSED TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL

I have the honour to refer to the statement of 4 April 1983 by the President of the Security Council on behalf of the members of the Security Council (document S/15680), and on instructions from my Government to state the following: Israel rejects the statement made on behalf of the members of the Security Council.

As was pointed out in my letter of 3 April 1983 addressed to Your Excellency (S/15674), "extensive clinical, laboratory and environmental analyses yielded no traces whatsoever of poisoning". The statement made on behalf of the members of the Security Council not only ignores my letter but also contains an absolutely unwarranted reference to "cases of mass poisoning".

As was further pointed out in my said letter to Your Excellency, in addition to the extensive investigations carried out by the Israel medical authorities, similar investigations have been conducted in recent days also by medical teams dispatched by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the World Health Organization and the United States Center for Disease Control. These facts have equally been disregarded in the statement made on behalf of the members of the Security Council, thus further heightening its inappropriateness.

Under these circumstances, the request contained in the presidential statement to the Secretary-General "to conduct independent inquiries" is not only unjustified; by implication it also calls into question the competence and integrity of the various medical teams already looking into the causes of the

phenomenon in question.

The statement made on behalf of the Security Council thus defies both logic and elementary fairness.

Israel, for its part, will continue in its urgent efforts, in co-operation with the appropriate international medical bodies, to ensure that the full truth be

brought to light without any delay and as early as possible.

I have the honour to request that this letter be circulated as a document of the Security Council.

(Signed) Yehuda Z. BLUM

Ambassador

Permanent Representative

of Israel to the United Nations

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