Organisation of Islamic Cooperation
The Collective Voice of The Muslim World
Date: 30/11/2022
Honorable Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations
H.E. Ambassador Sheikh Niang, Chairman of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,
We participate in this annual ceremony, organized on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, as an expression of our firm support for their just struggle for the restoration of their legitimate national rights, affirming our rejection of the policies of aggression, judaization, colonial settlement, forced displacement and racial discrimination practiced by the Israeli occupation.
On this occasion, I would like to express the OIC appreciation for the UN and its various agencies, particularly the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, for their tireless efforts and initiatives to mobilize international support and solidarity with the just Palestinian cause.
Excellencies
We meet today under a serious and deteriorating situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including the city of Al-Quds, resulting from escalating of violations, attacks and crimes committed by Israel, the occupying power, against the Palestinian people, their land and holy shrines, claiming the lives of more than 200 Palestinians since the beginning of this year and injuring hundreds, including children and women, in addition to the continued suffering of about 5.500 Palestinians in Israeli occupation prisons.
The situation in the city of Al-Quds is no less serious due to repeated attacks and violations by extremist settler groups protected by the Israeli occupation forces, against Islamic and Christian sanctities, especially the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. On this occasion, we reiterate that Al-Quds, the capital of the State of Palestine, is an integral part of the Palestinian land occupied in 1967. We also underline the need to preserve the legal and historical status of Islamic and Christian holy sites therein, and to put an end to Israeli measures aimed at changing its geographical and demographic status.
Condemning land confiscation policy, Israeli colonial settlements construction, and acts of provocation, violence and terrorism committed by Israeli settlers against the Palestinian people, their land and property, we caution, in this regard, that illegal practices which continue, without deterrence nor accountability, will encourage the Israeli occupation persistence in committing more crimes and attacks against the Palestinian people.
On more than one occasion, we have stressed the UN political, legal and humanitarian responsibility, especially at the Security Council level, towards the persistence of the Israeli occupation in defying the international will and legitimacy, and its attempts to impose a fait accompli on the ground, and to evade its obligations under international agreements and resolutions. We also underlined the need to put an end to its colonial plans to undermine the vision of the two-state solution, and to hold it accountable for violations and crimes that it still commits daily against the Palestinian people, their land and their holy sites.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
While condemning administrative detention policies and the inhuman and repressive treatment to which Palestinian prisoners are subjected in Israeli occupation prisons, we stressed the need to examine the record of violations by the Israeli occupation of their rights. We also reiterated the need to ensure that Israel, the occupying power, will abide by its obligations under all relevant international instruments, and to exert pressure to compel it to release all prisoners, especially the sick, the elderly, children, women, and administrative detainees.
The OIC reaffirms that no security, peace nor stability can be realized in the Middle East without a just, comprehensive and lasting solution to the cause of Palestine in all its aspects in accordance with international law, relevant UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative. We also renew our call on the international actors to engage in a multilateral political process to end the Israeli occupation, achieve justice, provide international protection for the Palestinian people, and enable them to exercise their rights, including their right to establish their sovereign state over the Palestinian land occupied since 1967, with Al-Quds as its capital, and find a just solution to the Palestinian refugee issue in accordance with UNGA Resolution 194.
Thank you.
