U.N. to Israel:
Respect U.N. Resolutions & Fourth Geneva Convention
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| The
General Assembly demanded
an immediate end to Israeli incursions in the West Bank and all
acts of violence, incitement and destruction
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U.N. to Israel: Respect U.N. Resolutions & Fourth Geneva Convention
UNITED NATIONS, August 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution Monday, August 5, demanding that the Israeli armed forces withdraw immediately to the positions they occupied when the current intifada began in September 2000.
The resolution, adopted by 114 votes to four with 11 abstentions, also calls for “the immediate cessation of military incursions and all acts of violence, terror, provocation, incitement and destruction,” Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
The United States, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia were the only countries to vote against the resolution, which “strongly deplores the lack of Israeli cooperation” in implementing previous U.N. resolutions on the matter.
The resolution also emphasizes the urgency of ensuring that medical and humanitarian organizations get unhindered access to Palestinian civilians at all times, and calls for assistance in rebuilding and revitalizing the Palestinian economy.
The U.N. reiterated “the obligation of Israel, the occupying Power, to fully and effectively respect the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
Despite its strong wording, the resolution represents a substantially watered down version of the original proposed by the Arab group, which the European Union had said it was unable to support.
Notably, a paragraph condemning “excessive force” by the Israelis had to be dropped.
Eventual abstainers included Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Nigeria and Romania.
Israeli representative Aaron Jacob blasted the outcome, saying his country could expect nothing more from the General Assembly than “outrageously partisan resolutions.”
The resolution came at the end of a day in which a General Assembly debate on a U.N. report into the Israeli incursion into the West Bank refugee camp at Jenin further illustrated the isolation of Israel and the United States.
A draft resolution to condemn Israel for the “atrocities” against citizens committed by Israeli troops in Jenin and other Palestinian cities was deemed “hypocrisy” by the United States, which asked how it was possible not to condemn “Palestinian terrorism” in the wake of a new wave of anti-Israeli violence, reported AFP.
In the end, the resolution adopted “takes note of the Secretary General’s report" on the Jenin refugee camp, but does not otherwise refer specifically to events there. It said that “a full and complete account of the events in Jenin and in other Palestinian cities could not be obtained.”
The special session of the U.N. General Assembly took place in the wake of the latest series of tit-for-tat attacks sparked by a July 22 Israeli missile strike on a densely populated Palestinian area which killed 16 civilians - including 12 children - as well as Salah Shehada, the Hamas leader Israel had targeted and his bodyguard.
On Friday, August 2, Human Rights Watch said that the U.N. report on events in Jenin was seriously flawed.
The report, mandated by a U.N. General Assembly resolution after Israeli objections forced the Secretary-General to disband a U.N. fact-finding team, largely limits itself to presenting competing accounts of the events during the Israeli military incursions.
“The report doesn’t move us forward in terms of establishing the truth,” said Hanny Megally, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa Division of HRW. “Its watered-down account of the very serious violations in Jenin exposes the risk of compiling a report without any first-hand information,” he added on the New York-based human rights watchdog website.
While the report describes some general allegations that have been made about the conduct of the Israeli and Palestinian sides during the Israeli incursion, it draws almost no conclusions on the merits of those claims, said HRW.
It makes only limited reference to the obligations of the parties under international law, makes few clear conclusions about violations of that law, and does not raise the issue of accountability for serious violations that may have been committed, some of which rise to the level of war crimes. Its information and analysis are strongest when dealing with the blockage of humanitarian and medical access to the camp.
Human Rights Watch said part of the report’s problems stems from the terms of its mandate. Set up by a U.N. General Assembly resolution after the Secretary-General was forced by Israel's objections to disband a U.N. fact-finding mission, the report was collated from existing sources. The report was hampered still further when the government of Israel did not comply with the United Nation's request for information.
“Even with what they had, they could have done more,” Megally said.
The British daily newspaper, the Independent, whose investigation inside Jenin shortly after the incursion unearthed numerous corroborating accounts of atrocities, reported Friday, that many of the victims whose stories were published May 3 in the paper were not mentioned in the U.N. report.
The Israeli army’s complete bulldozing of an area of housing that measured 400 meters by 500 meters is not described, added the Independent. The report notes that 150 buildings were destroyed.
There is no mention of evidence found by both HRW and Amnesty International that extra judicial killings of Palestinians by Israeli soldiers took place.
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