RAMALLAH, Tuesday, March 26, 2019 (WAFA) - Palestine’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, said in a statement before the United Nations Security Council that, “nothing under international law, whether humanitarian or human rights law, can ever justify the dehumanization, desperation, and devastation being imposed upon our [Palestinian] people.

“The Council is duty-bound to maintain international peace and security and must not turn a blind eye to Israel’s violations and aggressions; it must demand the occupying Power’s respect for its legal obligations, without exception, including to ensure the safety and welfare of the civilian population under its occupation as per the 4^th Geneva Convention, and ensure accountability in the case of continued breaches,

Following is the full speech titled:  “The Situation in the Middle East,

 including the Palestine Question”

          Mr. President,

I thank the French and German Presidencies of the Security Council for their response to the calls for the Council to urgently address the dangerous situation unfolding in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. I also thank Special Coordinator and Representative of the Secretary-General, Mr. Nikolay Mladenov, for his briefing and efforts

Week after week, in official communications, we have alerted the Security Council to the escalation of Israeli violations against the Palestinian people, who remain captive under Israel’s medieval military occupation and blockade. We have urged the Council to heed the early warnings and to act to stem the deterioration of an already tense and volatile situation, which all have deemed not only unsustainable but explosive.

We have called, time after time, on the Council to uphold its Charter duties in order to avert the outbreak of another deadly cycle of violence and to protect innocent civilian lives. We have appealed to the Council to implement its own resolutions with a view to ensuring accountability and to salvaging the prospects for peace.

Yet, all this has been to no avail. The Council has been silenced by the obstruction of a permanent member, which has, in turn, emboldened Israel, the occupying Power, to persist with total impunity in its systematic acts of violent aggression, incitement, provocation and collective punishment against the Palestinian people and rabid colonization and de facto annexation of our land.

And so today, again, we find ourselves at the edge of the precipice, fearing for the lives of our people as Israeli officials ratchet up their threats of war against the besieged Gaza Strip. Once again, Israeli occupying forces have taken to the skies dropping bombs and missiles on our defenseless civilian population, terrorizing and traumatizing them in a blatant act of aggression and collective punishment in grave breach of international law.

While perhaps the cyclical wars on Gaza have come to be seen by some as the norm, there is nothing normal about imprisoning, isolating and terrorizing 2 million people, more than half of them children and youth, for more than a decade. There is nothing normal about a people being repeatedly trapped and slaughtered, including children posing absolutely no threat to life, just as like the families sheltering in their homes fearing the next nightmare of Israeli attacks. There is nothing normal about the targeting and injury of over 29,000 civilians – peaceful demonstrators - with live ammunition and other deadly weaponry by one of the most powerful armies in the world.

As we approach the one year anniversary of the Great March of Return with deep worry about such continued savagery by the Israeli occupying forces, the Security Council cannot ignore the findings of the independent Commission of Inquiry of the Human Rights Council, which found, with the exception of one incident on 14 May and one incident on 12 October, reasonable grounds to believe that, in all other cases, the use of live ammunition by the Israeli forces against demonstrators was unlawful , and that demonstrators were shot in violation of their right to life or of the principle of distinction under international humanitarian law.

Nothing under international law, whether humanitarian or human rights law, can ever justify the dehumanization, desperation and devastation being imposed upon our people. Even the need for security, which is neither mutually exclusive nor zero-sum. Implications that the security of one must be achieved at the expense of the humanity and welfare of the other are as offensive as they are illegitimate. The law is beyond clear – it is not the occupied people that must ensure the safety of the occupier, but the other way around – and no rhetoric or propaganda can change that.

Mr. President,

What we are witnessing at this moment did not begin yesterday; it is part of the long-running campaign of violence and terror being waged against our people by Israel, the occupying Power, by its military forces and extremist settlers. What we are witnessing is pretext after pretext being exploited by warmongering Israeli officials – and again in the context of an election campaign – to harm, kill, injure and maim defenseless Palestinians in order to prove their might and bravado.

Just listen to the words of Israeli government and military leaders themselves as they boast of intentions to “annihilate”, “punish” or “devastate” Gaza, or threaten to “bomb the Palestinian people back to the stone age” and continue vying with each other for who will spill more Palestinian blood. And yet, this is met with silence. But, one can just imagine the condemnations, shaming and calls for action were such threats and inflammatory rhetoric uttered by any other.

Here, we must once again put on record – contrary to the blatant distortions and deceptions by Israel – the fact that the Palestinian leadership has repeatedly and unequivocally condemned acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror. We reject any libelous claims otherwise. We condemned rocket fire against civilian areas; this cannot be denied. We have stood firmly against terror and committed to respect international law in this regard, without exception, including the Council’s demand in resolution 2334 (2016) for cessation of all acts of violence against civilians, including all acts of terror, as well of provocations, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric.

This commitment and our longstanding commitment to non-violence and the pursuit of peaceful, political, legal means for the realization of our people’s rights and a just peace have been proven over and over again, also regrettably to no avail. And, this makes all the more repugnant Israel’s attempts to paint the leadership and entire people with the broad brush of terrorism and all the more repugnant its vicious claims concerning the social assistance to the families of Palestinian prisoners and martyrs who have suffered so much under this unjust, absolutely illegal occupation.

Mr. President,

Palestinian families – defenseless children, women and men – are bracing themselves for the prospect of yet another barbaric military aggression by Israel against Gaza, where the population has yet to recover from the lasting impact of the destruction and human loss caused by past Israeli wars and where coping capacities have been depleted by the collective punishment of the illegal Israeli blockade and the humanitarian catastrophe it has deliberately inflicted on them.

 The Security Council must make its voice heard and act to deter further violence and escalation of this dangerous situation. The Council is duty-bound to maintain international peace and security and must not turn a blind eye to Israel’s violations and aggressions; it must demand the occupying Power’s respect for its legal obligations, without exception, including to ensure the safety and welfare of the civilian population under its occupation as per the 4^th Geneva Convention, and ensure accountability in the case of continued breaches. This is a matter of urgency to avert another onslaught and save innocent civilian lives.

We urge that the warnings be heeded and call for serious action to prevent further brutality from raining down on our people. Here, we recognize and pay tribute to Egypt and its efforts to secure a ceasefire, and recognize also the efforts of the Secretary-General and Special Coordinator Mladenov, seeking de-escalation and protection of civilian life. We recognize as well the vital humanitarian assistance that continues to be provided by UN agencies on the ground, even in the midst of these turbulent times, with UNRWA in the lead and constituting a vital lifeline for the most vulnerable among our people, our refugees.

At the same time, we must call upon the Security Council, which has today received the 9^th report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of resolution 2334 (2016), to remain vigilant in also demanding an end to all other illegal Israeli policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. Israel cannot be absolved under any pretext of its obligations to bring a complete and immediate halt to its settlement activities, which are destroying the contiguity of the State of Palestine and destroying the viability of the two-State solution on the 1967 borders, in grave breach of international law and in flagrant contempt of the Council.

And those who are complicit in these crimes must not be spared censure or accountability, including as concerns the annexation attempts of Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan in blatant violation of the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force, Security Council resolutions and the rules-based order.

The Security Council must also demand that Israel, the occupying Power, cease immediately all acts of provocation and incitement, including by its extremist settlers, and all military incursions, including attacks on worshippers and against the sanctity and historic status quo of holy sites in Occupied East Jerusalem, including Al-Haram Al-Sharif. Such reckless and unlawful actions threaten the outbreak of religious conflict of far-reaching and disastrous impact.

Today, we again appeal to this august Council to uphold its responsibilities to bring an end to this illegal occupation and an end this historic injustice against the Palestinian people. We urge you to act before it is too late, based on the principles and parameters long enshrined in the relevant UN resolutions, including resolution 2334 (2016). We urge you to protect the innocent lives endangered by this man-made disaster and, beyond that, to seek solutions and to stop managing crisis after crisis, tragedy after tragedy, generation after generation. The lives of our people and their future depend on this; the prospects for just solution depend on this; peace and security in the Middle East depend on this.

I thank you, Mr. President.

 T.R.