JEDDAH (Dispatches) – An influential watchdog body of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has called for an end to the Zionist regime’s occupation of Palestine as the only way to stop ongoing human rights abuses against Palestinians.
The OIC’s Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission made its appeal on Monday to coincide with the UN-run International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People 2021.
In a statement, the IPHRC pointed out that the solidarity day highlighted the urgent need for the global community to recognize the inalienable right to self-determination of Palestinian people.
“Today is not only an opportunity for the international community to remember that the question of Palestine remains unresolved, but it is also an opportunity to focus attention on the increasing suffering of the Palestinian people, under the Israeli occupation, and to unify all efforts for assisting them to attain their fundamental rights, including the right to self-determination and the right to return for Palestinian refugees to their homes and property, from which they have been displaced,” the commission said.
OIC on Monday also condemned a visit by Zionist president Isaac Herzog to the Ibrahimi Mosque in the West Bank city of Al-Khalil to celebrate the festival of Hanukkah.
Herzog forced his way into the mosque on Sunday to participate in a candle-lighting ceremony. He was accompanied by a large number of Zionist troops and settlers.
In a statement, the Jeddah-based OIC decried the move as a “provocation of sentiments of Muslims” and a “continuation of Israeli assaults on the rights of the Palestinian people, their land and holy sites”.
Meanwhile, Syrian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Bashar al-Jaafari says the Damascus government supports the right of Palestinian people to self-determination, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Al-Quds as its capital.
Speaking at a ceremony on the occasion of International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Jaafari underscored that Syria also backs Palestinian refugees’ right to return to the homes from which they were displaced, as set forth in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 adopted on December 11, 1948.
He noted that Syria has always considered the Palestinian cause a matter of domestic issue, and spared no effort to resolve the Palestinian issue.
“The international community has so far failed to put an end to the Israeli occupation of Arab territories, and the Tel Aviv regime’s authorities have not been held to account for such a crime,” the senior Syrian diplomat pointed out.
For his part, Palestinian Ambassador to Syria Samir al-Rifai stressed the importance of International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, and said the occasion points to the gross injustice and suffering that Palestinians have endured ever since the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which set out Britain’s aim to establish a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.