In letters he sent to the heads of the parliaments and federations, PNC Speaker Mr. Saleem Al-Za’anoon reminded of the parliaments about the most blatant violations of the rights of the Palestinian people by the occupying power - Israel - during the past month, especially targeting life and property, and depriving Palestinians of their right to self-determination on their land, and to live in an independent and sovereign state, with the city of Jerusalem as its capital, in accordance with the relevant international legitimacy resolutions.

The Israeli occupation continues to apply an apartheid regime on the entire occupied Palestinian lands, and implement the policy of displacement and ethnic cleansing, the best evidence of this is what is happening now in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and Silwan town in occupied Jerusalem, and the practice of apartheid has been documented by international human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch.

The Israeli occupation is trying to implement ethnic cleansing in occupied Jerusalem, sometimes by seizing homes, and at other times demolishing them under the pretext of development, most recently is announcing the implementation of the so-called "East Jerusalem City Center Plan", in order to obliterate the identity and history of the Old City in Jerusalem, by confiscating hundreds of hectares and some properties of endowments (Awqaf), churches and citizens, to bring about more changes to the legal and demographic reality of Jerusalem.

Likewise, the Christian and Islamic holy sites, foremost of which is the Al-Aqsa Mosque, did not escape the daily incursions and damage to the sanctity of the place.

PNC would like to recall that the UN Security Council, in its resolutions 476 and 478, condemned and rejected Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem, considering the Israeli act null and void, while Resolution No. 2334 of 2016 affirmed that the city of Jerusalem is an occupied Palestinian city, which invalidates any Israeli claim to sovereignty over it.

The occupation continues to practice the policy of demolishing Palestinian homes and facilities on a large scale in the occupied territories since 1967 in grave violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, an act that amounts to a war crime and a crime against humanity under the “Rome Statute” of the International Criminal Court.

Since the beginning of this year, the OCHA office in Palestine has documented the destruction of 474 Palestinian buildings, including 150 donor-funded buildings, resulting in the displacement of 656 people, including about

359 children.

In addition to all this, the violation of the rights of Palestinian prisoners is escalating, as 16 prisoners in the Israeli occupation prisons continue their open hunger strike, refusing to continue their arbitrary detention according to the so-called “Administrative Detention”, which violates the provisions of Articles 83-96 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, where about (530) administrative detainees remain in the occupation prisons, including dozens of patients without charge or trial, a policy that the Israeli occupation applies on a large scale despite its abnormal, exceptional and temporary nature, as a form of collective punishment.

Moreover, the occupation continues to target Palestinian civilians especially children and execute them in cold blood.

Since the beginning of this year, about 77 children have been killed. The last victim was the 11-year-old child, Mohammad Al-Alami, and the reason is that the occupation is taking advantage of the systematic impunity from accountability and punishment that must be activated to deter the occupation from continuing to commit crimes by killing Palestinian civilians.

Accordingly, PNC would like to emphasize that the grave situation of violation of the rights of the Palestinian people requires upgrading positions, from condemnations and denunciations to activating the procedures, mechanisms and legal procedures guaranteed by international law, the Geneva Conventions and the statute of the criminal court, in order to deter the Israeli occupation.

In conclusion, the continued failure to hold Israel accountable for its violations, encouraged it to commit more, and to challenge the will of the international community, its institutions and decisions.

Therefore, the inevitable option is to ensure Israel accountability and imposition of sanctions, to oblige it to its duties under the provisions of international law and relevant international agreements, and to ensure that the Palestinian people are fully empowered, as an approach for peace and stability in the Middle East.

10 August 2021