UAE statement at the Human Rights Council's general debate on the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories

The UAE has joined statements by the groups of Arab, Islamic and GCC countries at the Human Rights Council to express great concern and dissatisfaction over the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories and Israel's serious and systematic violations against the Palestinians, Ambassador Obaid Salem Al Zaabi, Permanent Representative of the UAE to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Geneva, announced. 

The statements were issued at the Human Rights Council's general debate on the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories. They condemned the occupation forces' violation of rights and freedoms of the Palestinian people. 

In a speech before the council, Al Zaabi stressed that Israel as an occupying force must abide by the international law and the international humanitarian law, in particular the Fourth Geneva Convention, and protect civilians under its occupation. 

But Israel, he said, in continuous collaboration with its allies, continues its aggression in occupied Palestine, commits the ugliest crimes killing civilian Palestinians, seizing their lands and destroying their properties as part of its policies of ethnic cleansing, judaisation of Jerusalem and collective and indiscriminate punishment, expanding settlements and inciting violence, all of which show that the avenues opened by the 1993 Oslo agreement are set to vanish. 

He noted that Israel's impunity for its violations, as well as its rejection of any solution that would restore regional peace and security, makes it difficult for international efforts to reach a settlement of the conflict as long as Israel continues to occupy Palestine. 

The UAE, Al Zaabi stressed, urges the international community to spare no effort to save the two-state solution and work seriously towards reviving the Middle East process. 

Additionally, he said the UAE welcomes Palestine's joining a number of international agreements in the past two years. 

The UAE also welcomes some European countries' recognition of the Palestinian statehood and expressed the hope that more countries would follow suit, he noted. 

AL Zaabi also renewed the UAE's support for the Arab Peace Initiative as a historical opportunity to end the conflict, establish an independent Palestinian state on the June 1967 border with East Jerusalem as its capital.