UN debates PA resolution demanding Israel leave ‘Occupied Palestinian Territory’
Non-binding text, based on ICJ advisory opinion, declares Jewish state must ‘end without delay its unlawful presence’ in East Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza, sets 12-month deadline
UN member states debated Tuesday a push by the Palestinian Authority to formally demand an end to Israeli rule of “Occupied Palestinian Territory” within 12 months.
The text, which has faced fierce criticism from Israel, is based on an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice calling Israel’s military rule of areas captured during the 1967 Six Day War “unlawful.”
“Israel is under an obligation to bring to an end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible,” read the opinion, requested by the General Assembly.
In response, Arab countries called for a special session of the assembly just days before dozens of heads of state and government descend on the UN headquarters this month to address the kick-off of this year’s General Assembly session.
“The idea is you want to use the pressure of the international community in the General Assembly and the pressure of the historic ruling by the ICJ to force Israel to change its behavior,” said Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour on Monday, acknowledging the draft resolution had “shocked many countries.”
The draft resolution, due to be voted on late Tuesday or Wednesday, “demands that Israel brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” and that this be done “no later than 12 months from the adoption.”
The first draft text gave only six months.
Israel firmly rejected the resolution on Tuesday.
“We gather here to watch the Palestinians’ UN circus — a circus where evil is righteous, war is peace, murder is justified,” said Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“How dare you continue this tradition of passing one-sided resolutions against Israel.”
US envoy also decries ‘inflammatory’ motion
The draft resolution — which would be non-binding — also “demands” the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank and Gaza, a halt to new settlements, the return of seized land and property, and the possibility of return for displaced Palestinians.
A paragraph calling on member states to halt arms exports to Israel disappeared from the draft text during negotiations, however.
“The Palestinians want to live — not survive. They want to be safe in their homes,” said Mansour on Tuesday, kicking off the debate on the first resolution ever introduced by the Palestinians.
“How many more Palestinians need to be killed before change finally takes place to stop this inhumanity?”
The ICJ opinion was “a historic opinion as this was the first time the court examined the Israeli occupation as a whole,” Mansour said.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield condemned the draft resolution as “inflammatory” and said it “is not going to advance the cause of peace.”
“It also fails to acknowledge, among other things, that Hamas, a terrorist organization, is currently exerting power, control and influence in Gaza,” Thomas-Greenfield added.
In its July decision, the ICJ said it determined Israel’s policy of settlement in the West Bank violated international law, and that Israel had effectively annexed large parts of the West Bank — along with East Jerusalem, which it formally annexed and designated as sovereign Israeli territory in 1980 — due to some of the apparently permanent aspects of Israeli rule there.
The legal consequences of its findings, the court ruled, were that Israel must end its control of these areas, cease new settlement activity, “repeal all legislation and measures creating or maintaining the unlawful situation” — including those that it said “discriminate against the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” — and provide reparations for any damage caused by its “wrongful acts.”
In addition, the court said that all UN member states are obligated not to recognize changes to the status of the territories and that all states are obligated not to aid or assist Israel’s rule of the territories, and ensure that any impediment “to the exercise of the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination is brought to an end.”
While the Security Council is largely paralyzed on the ongoing conflict in Gaza, from which Israel unilaterally withdrew from in 2005, the General Assembly has adopted several texts in support of Palestinian civilians amid the current war.
In May the assembly overwhelmingly supported a largely symbolic resolution on full Palestinian membership of the UN, garnering 143 votes in favor, nine against with 25 abstentions.
The push had previously been vetoed by Washington at the Security Council.
The West Bank-based PA has renewed its active efforts against Israel on the international scene since the war in Gaza began on October 7 with Hamas’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel, in which Palestinian terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
In response, Israel launched a ground invasion of Gaza with the proclaimed objectives of dismantling Hamas and getting the hostages back.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 41,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 344.
In addition to using the destruction from the war and the casualty figures in Gaza as a springboard for a renewed push for Palestinian statehood, the PA has also taken Israel to the International Court of Justice and backed the International Criminal Court in seeking war crimes arrest warrants against Israeli leaders.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has penalized the PA for its efforts, freezing funds from tax revenues that are meant to go to Ramallah and instead giving the money to families of victims of terrorism.
“We fight because we have no other choice yet, despite the cruelty we have faced, despite the unprecedented terror unleashed upon our people, this assembly remains silent,” Danon told the assembly meeting.
Lazar Berman and Jeremy Sharon contributed to this report.
