Calling Israeli practices in the occupied Palestinian territories a form of apartheid, the observer of the Organization of Islamic Conference told the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) this morning that, under international law, actions against Palestinians met all the elements of that crime.

Speaking on the second day of the general debate on Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories, the representative said that Israel was deliberately accelerating the process of the judaization of Jerusalem, in flagrant violation of the agreements signed by the two sides as part of the peace process. Its numerous violations of international law had included targeted assassinations, the demolition of houses, and the flattening of cultivated agricultural fields.

Several Arab Member States also drew attention to human rights violations and continued serious threats to regional security and stability. The representative of the United Arab Emirates said that Israel had challenged all international humanitarian laws by continuing to violate the Palestinians’ right to life, imposing collective punishment and compulsory expulsions, using civilians, as well as staff of international agencies, as human shields, and resorting to arbitrary arrests and detentions of thousands of civilians. It had also imposed curfews and severe restrictions on freedom of movement.

Kuwait's representative said that even now, as the Committee and the Security Council were discussing the deteriorating situation, Israeli forces were attacking Palestinian camps and villages with tanks and armored vehicles. Expansion of its settlement projects and other “criminal acts”, including the demolition of houses and the imposition of curfews, were practiced in the open, before the whole world, without any political, moral or human deterrent, he said. Was Israel an unaccountable State, which was above the law? he asked.

Highlighting Israel’s refusal to cooperate with the Special Committee or grant it access to the occupied territories, the representative of Lebanon expressed his appreciation for the Committee’s work, whose report had shed light on dangerous and counterproductive Israeli practices, which had affected some 600,000 Palestinians. Lebanon was not immune to such practices, as Israel had occupied most of its territories and remained in the Shabaa farms, which had been laid with mines.

Lebanese prisoners were still being detained in Israeli prisons, without any legal basis and in violation of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention.

The international community as a whole, and the United Nations in particular, had a responsibility to focus all its attention to putting an end to the inhumane practices of the Israeli regime, the representative of Iran urged. Its military operation must be terminated and the Fourth Geneva Convention should be fully applied. He was gravely concerned about the Israeli violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs in the occupied territories.

Statements were also made by the representatives of Libya, Bangladesh, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Zambia, Malawi, Bahrain, Sudan and Senegal.

The representatives of Syria, Israel, and Lebanon, as well as the observer of Palestine, spoke in exercise of the right of reply.

The Committee will meet again at 10 a.m. Friday, 15 November, to consider related draft texts.