1_March 2019, Ramallah – On the occasion of the International Women’s Day (8 March), a week-long joint campaign “My Rights, Our Power” was launched today in Palestine to raise awareness on women’s fundamental human rights. The joint effort, with participation from over 30 national and international partners from civil society organizations, media outlets, and international development agencies, targets youth, women, and men in various geographic areas in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza to promote women’s human rights in Palestine.

The campaign comes at a crucial moment when the anticipated adoption of the Family Protection Bill is at a standstill, raising concerns among national and international stakeholders about the consequences of such delay on safeguarding women’s fundamental human rights in Palestine. According to the Palestine report of the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES), nearly one in five Palestinian men (17 percent) surveyed said they had perpetrated act of physical intimate partner violence against female partners, while 21 per cent of women surveyed reported having experienced such violence.

“Family violence, usually committed by a family member who has social or economic power over others in the family, causes enormous pain and suffering to all members of the family, especially the women and children,” said a spokesperson from civil society, which has vigorously initiated the development of the Family Protection Bill (FPB), and has strongly pushed its adoption since 2004.

“The violation of women’s human rights manifests in various levels and should be also understood from economic, cultural, and social aspects,” the spokesperson added, highlighting the lack of opportunities and freedom of choice, as well as limited access to justice and services that women in Palestine still experience.

The joint campaign aims to raise awareness of the general public, especially youth, women, and men on women’s fundamental rights in line with international standards and embedded in the Family Protection Bill draft endorsed by the previous Cabinet at the end of December 2018. Five key messages, addressing women’s right to a life free of violence, right to achieve justice and seek help in case of violation of such life, as well as the right to equal opportunities and right to make one’s own choices, will be distributed through various channels such as radio, social media, helpline (121), outreach activities, and on-site events. The closing event of the joint campaign will take place on 8 March in Jerusalem and will celebrate women’s achievements using TED-style talks, followed by art performances.

“My Rights, Our Power” joint campaign is part of the global International Women’s Day 2019 campaign under the theme of “Think equal, build smart, innovate for change”. The theme focuses on innovative ways in which we can advance gender equality and the empowerment of women, particularly in the areas of social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure, echoing the theme of the 63rd session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW 63) taking place in New York on 11-22 March 2019.

The participating organizations of the “My Rights, Our Power” are (in alphabetical order): 17 Palestinian women’s organizations represented by Al-Muntada (coalition), British Consulate-General, Business Women Forum, CARE International, Consulate General of Sweden, Consulate General of Belgium, EUPOL COPPS, EU Representative Office, FAO, General Union of Palestinian Women, Government of Japan, CowaterSogema/GROW Project, International Labour Organization, Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, Ma’an TV, MIFTAH, Netherlands Representative Office, Nisaa FM, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development, Palestinian Family Planning and Protection Association, Representative Office of Canada, Representative Office of Denmark, SAWA, Sawasya II, Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, Sports for Life, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, Representative Office of Norway, UNDP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNOPS, UN Women, Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling, Women’s Studies Center.

For more information, please contact Eunjin Jeong at UN Women via eunjin.jeong@unwomen.org or 059 2321 308, Majd Beltaji at UNESCO via m.beltaji@unesco.org or 059 4501 506.

Mr. President,

We thank France for organizing this important meeting and extend our appreciation to the Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary General, the Executive Director of UN Women, the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security and the Secretary-General of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie for their efforts and important briefings.

The issue before us is of relevance not only for half the planet, but to all, given the role and contribution of women in the fields of peace and security and the untapped potential that could be unleashed by mainstreaming their participation. Since the adoption by consensus of resolution 1325 by this Council, a lot has happened, and yet we are still far from the goal of full and equal participation, including in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in peace-building, and from ensuring the protection and empowerment of women. Gender equality and non-discrimination remain prerequisites for the fulfilment of the purposes and principles of this organization and all of our lofty, collective commitments, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The State of Palestine welcomes the Secretary General’s report and his commitment to implementing the women and peace and security agenda, including by placing gender at the centre of his prevention platform and surge in diplomacy. We appreciate all efforts by the UN in this regard, including by UN Women, OHCHR and UNDP, notably in the field of human rights, capacity building, employment and rule of law. We urge UN bodies, notably those operating in Palestine, including the Special Representative, to intensify their engagement and collaboration with women organizations.

Mr. President,

I wish to highlight some of Palestine’s own important efforts in this regard. The Palestinian women’s movement is one of the oldest and strongest in the region and beyond, with institutional and representative structures established as early as the 19th century. Within the PLO, the General Union of Palestinian Women was among the first unions to be established. A coordination of women frameworks within PLO political parties and other organizations has also been established as the “Women’s Affairs Technical Committee” in the aftermath of the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference.

There have been many achievements thereafter. Among them: In 2012, Palestine inaugurated a High-Level National Committee for the implementation of resolution 1325, led by the Ministry of Women Affairs in partnership with relevant Ministries and NGOs. In 2016, the State of Palestine was among the 68 countries and areas that adopted a National Action Plan on women, peace and security.

This Action Plan (2017-2019), adopted by both the Government and civil society organizations, identifies three primary objectives: 1. ensuring protection for women and girls both domestically and in the face of the Israeli occupation; 2. ensuring accountability through national and international mechanisms, with a particular focus on crimes and violations committed by the occupation; and 3. furthering women’s political participation in decision making at the national and international level. The State of Palestine also joined core IHL and human rights instruments, including CEDAW, without reservations. Women’s participation and empowerment are also important and cross-cutting objectives in the context of the National Policy Agenda (2017-2022).

We are, however, conscious that, despite all these efforts, much more work remains to be done. Only in 2009 was a women elected to the highest executive body of the PLO. Quotas are still decisive in allowing women’s election to Parliament and local councils. And while women organizations were among the strongest advocates of national reconciliation, they have been unfairly absent from reconciliation talks. The relevant legislative framework applicable in Palestine is also outdated and must be revised to ensure consistency with Palestine’s international commitments and obligations and avail women the protection and rights they are entitled to and the opportunities they deserve.

Mr. President,

The Palestinian women’s movement since its establishment over a century ago pursued the struggle on two fronts – the struggle for the independence of Palestine and the struggle for women’s rights and empowerment – a dual struggle the movement continues to pursue to this day. The Israeli occupation remains the main source of the violations of our women’s rights and their vulnerability and violence against their person. We have repeatedly called for protection of the Palestinian people, especially women and children. We have also called for accountability, a key element of resolution 1325, the first resolution to address the disproportionate and unique impact of armed conflict on women, as the only way to put an end to violations and crimes.

While Palestine stands ready to do its part to advance women rights and the role of women in the fields of peace and security, it is clear that the enjoyment of these rights in our country necessitates ending the Israeli occupation. We will thus continue to work for an end of the occupation and true progress on the path to independence, justice and peace, with the equal and full involvement of women, leading to an independent State of Palestine ensuring human rights for all its citizens without discrimination.

On the occasion of the ICC Prosecutor’s Office to Palestine, the Palestinian Women Coalition of UNSCR 1325, which consists of twelve different Palestinian women’s organisations, is urging the Prosecutor’s Office to take concrete actions towards investigating war crimes committed against Palestinians. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom remains deeply concerned with the complete impunity of Israeli war crimes and firmly supports the Coalition’s call for a just accountability mechanism for Palestinian victims. WILPF also calls on the international community to recognise and fully support Palestinian women’s organisations substantial role in paving the paths to justice, accountability and peace. Read the statement of the Palestinian Women Coalition of UNSCR 1325 below.

We, the Palestinian Women Coalition of UNSCR 1325,welcome the visit of the delegation of the ICC Prosecutor’s Office as a step in the right direction. But we are deeply disappointed that the purpose of this visit was restricted to preliminary examination, while Palestinian victims of Israeli war crimes, including women, continue to suffer and urgently await justice and an end to Israel impunity.

We do not understand the decision to exclude the Gaza Strip from this visit, when Gaza has been the site of the most war crimes and where women have been most systematically impacted by Israeli collective punishment policies; a prolonged imposed siege and a severe humanitarian deterioration resulting from Israeli military aggressions .

We are further disappointed that women who have been systematically impacted, and their women’s organisations, have been excluded from the delegation’s agenda.

We call upon all future delegations of the ICC Prosecutor’s Office to include on their agenda meetings with women’s organisations and women who have experienced direct and indirect impacts of Israeli crimes.

We, the Palestinian Women Coalition of UNSCR 1325, have seen in UNSCR 1325, 2242, and other UN Resolutions a commitment to hold the Israeli perpetrators accountable for their war crimes.

We look to the ICC as the most important mechanism to end impunity for all war crimes committed, finally bringing justice for the Palestinian people. Yet, we are very concerned that the preliminary examinations will be an endless process.

Therefore, we urge, Ms. Fatou Bensouda, the Prosecutor of the ICC, to conclude the preliminary examination and move to investigations into Israeli war crimes, bringing justice to Palestinians.

We have paid the price of non-accountability and impunity of Israeli war crimes for too long. “Delaying justice is justice denied.”

Palestinian Women Coalition of UNSCR 1325: The General Union of Palestinian Women (GUPW), the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC), Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development (PWWSD), MIFTAH, Filastinyat, Women Media and Development (TAM), Women Stu Dies Center, Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WACLAC), the National, YWCA of Palestine, Center for Women’s Legal Research and Consulting (CWLRC), the Culture and Free thought Association(CWLRC) and Women’s Affairs Center (GWAC).

Occupied Palestine

October 11, 2016

On the night Barack Obama won the U.S. presidency, he announced: "To all those ... who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world ... a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you.... The true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope."

Obama's words made the world shiver with anticipation.

One year later, anticipation has turned to disappointment. The U.S. president's first State of the Union address coincides roughly with the anniversary of the end of Operation Cast Lead, the devastating Israeli military offensive on Gaza last winter. And yet Obama said nothing. During that assault, shuddering under ordnance dropped or fired by American-made F-16s, we Palestinians felt abandoned by the soon-to-be president. We recalled the words of Martin Luther King Jr., who maintained, "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

The sting of the White House's ongoing silence is devastating. Obama has remained a passive bystander as Israel has declared a faux freeze of settlements, arrested nonviolent civil society leaders, and denied desperate Palestinians, living in woeful conditions in Gaza, the basic necessities of livelihood.

Visitors to Gaza -- those few permitted in by Israel and Egypt -- are horrified at the scale of the human toll and widespread destruction. U.N. Justice Richard Goldstone concluded that war crimes might have been committed. Yet Obama has only broken his silence to defend Israeli war crimes by stifling the Goldstone report.

During Obama's presidential campaign, he visited the Israeli city of Sderot and had no qualms about declaring his solidarity with Israelis terrified by Palestinian rocket fire. "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."

I wonder what his advice would be to a helpless father in Gaza who cannot protect his children from the American-made weaponry that killed more than 300 innocent Palestinian children. What would he say to the Palestinian grandmother ejected in 1948 by Israel and prohibited from returning to the agricultural land that could feed her stunted grandchildren?

In June, Obama stated in Cairo, "America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own." But as each day goes by, Gaza slips into the hands of extremists, and the struggle for an equitable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis is being lost.

The reason is not Islam and not Hamas. The principal reason that a just solution to the conflict is fading is Israel's ongoing resort to military force in Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas respected the June 2008 truce until Israel provoked renewed rocket fire with an incursion into Gaza on Nov. 4, 2008, the day of the U.S. presidential election, killing six people. Less than two months later, Israel chose to launch its devastating war rather than negotiate a new cease-fire. This does nothing to encourage the moderates within Hamas, who are there and well worth approaching and sounding out.

Last week, Hamas met all factional leaders and asked for a complete halt to all rocket fire from the Palestinian side, so as not to give Israel a fresh excuse to start a new war. Hamas should and will recognize an Israeli state -- as Aziz Dweik, the Hamas speaker of the parliament, said last week -- once Israel recognizes a Palestinian state on the 1967 lines with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israeli governments have never accepted such an outcome yet have continually demanded that brutalized Palestinians show moderation.

The fundamental reason the opportunity for peace is slipping away is because Israeli extremists in the government and military are striving to prevent the birth of a Palestinian state. They want Palestinian land, but without the Palestinians. These Palestinians are to be cordoned off in Bantustans or made so miserable they leave for other countries.

The reconciliation of Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, with Fatah -- which rules parts of the West Bank but is absent from Jerusalem -- is crucial to reaching a negotiated settlement. While we Palestinians must do more to put our own house in order, we should be assisted by a U.S. policy that no longer pits Palestinian against Palestinian in the ancient game of divide and rule. With Palestinians divided, Israel feels no pressure to negotiate in good faith. Yet further delay only leads to more Israeli facts on the ground -- the very facts that might well make a two-state outcome impossible.

Obama should resolve to govern using the same principles that won the hearts of the American people and raised a glimmer of hope in the Arab world. In the Middle East, he should step off the sidelines and into action. Israel rules by the gun and will turn itself into an apartheid state if left to its own devices. The far-right elements within Israel's government would prefer endless war to a just peace that requires Israel to abandon its settlement project. These forces must be identified, publicly rebuked, and stopped.

It is imperative that Obama help Israel's leaders to understand that security cannot be achieved by the gun, but only by readiness to accept me, a Palestinian, as an equal human being with equal rights.

GAZA CITY

How much worse can it get? After a horrifying week, the Israelis have arrived once again at our doorstep. What now? Already we have experienced so much terror and want.

When the Israeli strikes first began, my wife and I were worrying about lentils. She said we could not have lentil soup for lunch because there were no lentils in the shops. Nor any rice or flour. Suddenly there was a deafening noise, followed by a succession of blasts the likes of which I had never experienced. Our house was rocking, the windows rattling in their panes.

Panicked, we ran into the small hallway. My sister-in-law, who lives upstairs, joined us, frantic because her young daughter was not yet home from school. Sari, a boy from the neighborhood, banged on our door asking for shelter. He trembled as he told us that he'd been on his way home from school in a taxi when there was a thundering blast. The driver stopped the car and ran for cover. The passengers scattered in all directions. Sari found himself running aimlessly. The explosions seemed to be chasing him, he said. Suddenly, he came upon people lying bleeding in the street. He went up to a man, wanting to help him, and touched his hand. It was nothing but a piece of burnt flesh. Somebody shouted at him to get away, so he ran off.

The news came over the telephone and the television. More than 200 people had been killed and even more wounded in less than 10 minutes. The numbers were climbing and the funeral scenes filled the TV screen. Apparently F16s had dropped more than 100 tons of bombs on crowded Gaza and had hit more than 300 targets in one mission. The pilots must have reported back to their commanders that their mission had been accomplished. But they never reported the pain and suffering of the innocent people and the fear their fighters had spread in the hearts of our children.

Noor, my stepdaughter, was silent throughout the day. Then she suddenly burst out alternately crying and laughing hysterically. She is a bright girl with artistic talents. She wants to write poetry.

On Monday, the phone rang. It was my friend Salam, asking for advice. His four children, ages 11, 9, 7 and 5, had wet their beds the night before. They'd mostly outgrown that a long time ago.

Three days after the attacks began, Fawaz Abu Sitta, a professor of political science at Al-Azhar University here, was declared dead on the radio. The announcer said that the rubble of a bombed ministry building had completely smothered his small villa. A friend who happened to hear the broadcast alerted civil defense officials to search Fawaz's basement. They did, and Fawaz was rescued along with his wife, his children and his elderly mother.

This carnage goes on, as does another humanitarian crisis brought about by the Israeli siege of Gaza: a lack of medicines, bread, flour, gas, electricity, fuel and almost everything else. The Israeli siege has literally turned Gaza into a massive prison. All our borders are sealed, so there is no way out.

By Tuesday night, Gaza was like a ghost town. Its streets were deserted and people didn't dare to come out of their houses.

The children suffer the most, I think. They see the fear in their mothers' eyes. The image of their fathers as a source of security is shattered. Their fathers could not provide them with food, and now they are unable to protect them. The rockets will eventually stop flying, I am certain, but it may be too late for these children. To me, the chances seem great that they will join Hamas as they search for a replacement for the father figure, someone to provide and protect. In this way, Israeli actions will only strengthen Hamas.

Wisdom tells us that violence can only breed violence. Israel's brutality guarantees that its people will not be secure. Israel may destroy much and kill many in Hamas, but that is not the solution. Hamas was born because of the occupation and won the democratic elections in 2006 because of false promises of peace and people's disillusionment with the Palestinian Authority. Israel and its allies should address Palestinian grievances instead of aggravating them by denying justice and security and by violating basic human rights. Most of the Palestinians in Gaza are here because they were expelled in 1948 when Israel was created. Since then, we have not had a day of freedom or of equal rights with Israelis. We can barely feed our children or provide them with medicine, because Israel controls everything that goes in and out. From where I sit, in the middle of this barrage of bombing, Israel looks to be increasingly living outside the norms of the world community and outside international law.

I am not alone in thinking this. U.N. Human Rights envoy Richard Falk declared that what Israel is doing is a crime against humanity. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson, former head of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, have expressed similar views in the past. Israel must be stopped.

It looks increasingly likely, though, that before the missiles stop exploding, we will have more days like last Thursday, when a family that lives across the street came to our house. They had gotten a phone call telling them to evacuate because their home would soon be bombed. Israelis sometimes make these calls, but you can't always be sure what will happen. Some houses are actually bombed after such messages. But some are hoaxes.

Our neighbors stayed with us for a couple of hours before they found out that the threat was just a joke -- a very dark kind of humor.

Then on Friday we got word that my stepdaughter's friend -- a Christian -- had died from wounds she had sustained earlier in the week. Noor spent the day crying.

So many people have left their homes. The people who live near Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, have fled. The entire neighborhood is empty.

I'm scared, but I'm staying put, though I am fearful of what's next. I'm worried about what will happen next, the serious bloodshed that will surely follow as the Israeli forces come through on land.

Hamas fighters will be battling from homes, in the streets, in the neighborhoods where we remain.

In an office not far from the White House, we met with Mr. Elliot Abrams, assistant to the US President national security advisor and in charge of the Middle East file. We were a small delegation participating in a conference on development in Palestine, when a few meetings were arranged for us. It was few months after the Hamas electoral triumph and formation of its government. Before the meeting, a friend said to me: “Mr. Abrams is a Neo Conservative, and is known for his outright frankness.

That was fine with me. We entered the room and the first words we heard were, “We have to remove Hamas from the government by any means”. I felt insulted, not because I am a Hamas supporter, but because of the arrogant fashion in which he put his words. A conversation then followed between the delegation and Mr. Abrams during which he reiterated the same idea in the same arrogant manner asserting that what US, or he himself willed, should come true and that he was sorry that some people would suffer from impoverishment, starvation and even death, but the goal was one and the same: to remove Hamas from the Palestinian government.

When asked about democracy, he simply talked to us derisively saying that we had the right to elect whomever we wished to elect and that they had the right to deal with whomever they wished to talk to. Then, he proceeded to talk about the invincible empire that shapes and decides for the world as it wishes. His words were too provocative to be tolerated, and I retorted, straightforwardly and candidly; “You have excelled in making the whole world hate you, and if there is something that has to be changed, it should be your Administration which gleans and accumulates failures.”

I ruminated over that meeting as I was watching on TV the PLC confidence vote on the national unity government, which I believe it was another defeat to Abrams; to the arrogance and the fiendish hegemony he stands for. I also pondered how the US fiasco in Iraq, the Israeli defeat in Lebanon, mean that a new world will be born, and a new Middle East will be created; one that is entirely at variance in its features with that conceived by Elliot, Condi, Cheney, and Bush.

With the formation of the Palestinian new government the US administration emerges as a loser; and so does Israeli government which has long pinned hopes on continuing to blockade the Palestinian Territories. The Israeli government was hoping that the Palestinian government persistence in declining to recognize previous accords and to reject violence, which Israel would use as a plea to establish its contention that the Palestinians are not peace partners. Here, the new government declares its commitment to the accords and authorizes the PLO (Abu Mazen) to negotiate with the Israelis and declares its commitment to the Arab Initiative in which the whole of the Arab nation trades peace for termination of the Israeli occupation of Arab territories. In this context, I hope the Palestinian government would take legal action before the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice to restore the Palestinian funds withheld by Israel.

Politically speaking, the party which came victor is Hamas, particularly the Masha’al-Haniya camp which featured Hamas as a major political actor rather than a mere armed militia acting outside the political community. Hamas has now become an integral part of the international formula and has thus saved itself and us more strikes, denigration and ostracization.

But the biggest winner in this government is President Abu Mazen who, guided by his firm belief in democracy and non-violence, has worked persistently to avoid civil war. Abu Mazen won when he insisted on holding democratic elections which brought Hamas to power and government, and when he made Hamas a player in the game of politics based on his conviction that Hamas must be a partner to any peace accords.

Fatah has some room to feel victorious after its defeat in the elections but Fatah did not win except for a period of time it badly needed to be rehabilitated and to address those internal challenges- such as personal and generational strives- which are threatening its very existence.

As a matter of fact, many are apprehensive that what may become of Fatah in the coming months could take it and take us to a perilous landslide in which some may recourse to war to escape democracy, accountability.

As far as I am concerned, I think that this government will be able to lift the political and financial blockade and will be able to reopen the door of assistance to the Palestinian people. This government will also put an end to violence between Hamas and Fatah, as long as Fatah stays united. Yet, I am not sure how this government will confront serious challenges as regards controlling arms which have become more hazardous to the Palestinian society than drug use and trafficking. Again I wonder how this government will deal with the security organs, termination of contending armed militias, putting an end to abduction of foreigners, last instance of which has been the kidnapping of a friend of the Palestinian people and of the truth, Allan Johnston, the British journalist. People hope that Haniya and his government, Mohammed Dahalan and the National Security Council, and President Abu Mazen will shoulder the responsibility of restoring law and order in order to protect Palestinian lives after hundreds have been lost in the latest Hamas and Fatah clashes in what has been one of the most abominable and unforgivable events in the Palestinian history.

Let us be hopeful...

Dr. Eyad El-Sarraj is the director general of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme and a human rights activist.

The occasion of the International Declaration on Human Rights Day comes this year at a time of repeated and daily Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people including killing, home demolition, house raids, re-occupation of towns and villages, deportation, indiscriminate detention, torture, razing agricultural land, and preventing medical teams from doing their work. These crimes affect all sectors of Palestinian society including women and children, and destroy all aspects of human life.

The international community has a responsibility today more than ever to find new mechanisms to enforce international law and ensure Israel’s adherence to it. This in itself is a challenge for the world to enforce the principles of the International Declaration on Human Rights, instead of having it ink on paper and abstract values. The future of the people of Middle East in general and that of Palestinian and Israeli children and the prospects of peace in the region and the rest of the world are at stake.

The situation in the Middle East is so volatile that is has become an urgent necessity for the forces of democracy and peace worldwide to make their voices heard in condemning Israeli violations of Palestinians’ rights. The urgency is amplified by the preparations for the expected strike against Iraq, which might lead indirectly to greater crimes against Palestinians and to inflaming feelings of anger and hatred in Arab and Muslim countries. Israel is expected to take advantage of the world’s preoccupation with Iraq to increase its aggression against the Palestinian people with crimes that might include massacres, ethnic cleansing, and occupation of Palestinian areas.

On the occasion of the International Declaration on Human Rights Day, we call upon the international community, especially the signatories of the 4th Geneva Convention, and human rights organizations to fulfill their responsibilities and urge Israel to respect international law. This is essential in order to safeguard the people of the region and the peace and security of the Middle East and the rest of the world.