Sunday 24 / November / 2024
New York: In a session held by the UN Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, GCC states urged the international community to take concrete measures to maintain security and peace and spare the lives of innocent Palestinians.
The GCC states called for a permanent, comprehensive and fair solution to the Palestinian issue, based on resolutions of global legitimacy, the International Law and resolutions issued by the Security Council, most notably Resolutions No. 242 and 338.
Delivering a statement on behalf of GCC states at the UN headquarters here, Mohammed Awad Al Hassan, the Sultanate of Oman's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), said that the current confrontation in the occupied Palestinian territories is not new and that the outcome is victims on both sides, a state of instability and a lack of security.
“The cause of this (confrontation) is the application of double standards which encouraged Israel to pursue its massacres against the Palestinian people”. In this context, Al Hassan quoted the example of Israel’s bombing Al Ahli Hospital in Gaza, leaving around 600 dead—most of them women, children and elderly—and hundreds wounded. He pointed out that the incident provides clear evidence of Israel's escalation of the situation and its violation of the international Law and global humanitarian charters, including the Geneva Conventions, since 1949.
Al Hassan reaffirmed that GCC states stress the necessity of reaching an immediate ceasefire and allowing relief teams and humanitarian agencies to enter Gaza Strip safely and unconditionally.
On behalf of GCC states, Al Hassan urged the Security Council to proclaim a “clear position” against the use of starvation and disconnection of power and water as a means of war.
He also urged the international community to stand by international law and support international human charters by lifting the siege on Gaza Strip, opening border crossings and protecting workers belonging to humanitarian organizations and medical teams to play their role, notably those who operate under authority of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
