UNITED NATIONS, Oct 17 (APP): Pakistan, speaking on behalf of Group of 77 (developing countries) and China, Monday urged the international community to provide protection to the Palestinians from Israel’s repeated attacks, and push for a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly’s Second Committee, which deals with economic and social issues, Muhammad Imran Khan, a counsellor in the Pakistani Mission to the UN, voiced concern over the adverse impact of the “persistent” Israeli practices in the occupied Arab territories on all areas of life, including the sovereignty of the Palestinian and Syrian people over their natural resources.
Pakistan is the current chairman of G77 and China, which now has 134 members and is the United Nations’ biggest intergovernmental group of emerging countries.
The Pakistani delegate reiterated G77’s support for economic development efforts and aspirations of the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and the Syrian people in the occupied Golan Heights.
The G77, he said, remained “deeply concerned” about the further decline of Palestinian people’s social and economic conditions resulting from illegal Israeli practices, including the continuing colonization of the Palestinian land in “grave” breach of international norms and relevant UN resolutions.
In this connection, Counsellor Imran Khan reaffirmed G77’s demand for a halt to Israel’s confiscation of Palestinian property, construction and expansion of Israeli settlements and the wall, demolition of Palestinian homes, mass dispossession and forced displacement of civilians as well as all measures of annexation, and calls for respect of international law and all relevant resolutions.
The Palestinian people continued to face severe restrictions on access to Area “C”, “which constitutes more than 60 per cent of the occupied West Bank area as any investment or economic activity in this area requires Israeli occupation-issued permits– a permit that is nearly impossible for the Palestinian people to obtain, as nearly 99 percent of building permit applications have been rejected over the years”, it was pointed out.
In Gaza, the G77 chairman said the Israeli blockade and repeated military aggressions had made development goals ever more elusive,
In that regard, he said, the G77 “reaffirms the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and of the population of the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources, and demands that Israel cease their exploitation, damage, cause of loss or depletion and endangerment”.
“We also emphasize the need for urgent mobilization and the deployment of multilateral efforts to advance the realization of a political horizon and preserve the prospects of achieving a just and lasting solution for the people of Palestine, on the basis of the two-state solution, with the peoples’ living side by side in peace and security, within secure and recognized pre-1967 borders,” the Pakistani delegate added.
