UN: Zionist Regime Must Call Off Forced Evictions

Date: 07 May 2021 - 20:50

News ID: ۸۹۹۴۷

NEW YOURK (Dispatches) – The United Nations urged the Zionist regime on Friday to call off any forced evictions in the occupied East al-Quds warning its actions could amount to "war crimes”.
"We call on Israel to immediately call off all forced evictions,” UN rights office spokesman Rupert Colville told reporters in Geneva.
"We wish to emphasize that East Jerusalem (al-Quds) remains part of the occupied Palestinian territory, in which international humanitarian law applies,” Colville said. "The occupying power … cannot confiscate private property in occupied territory.”
Transferring civilian populations into occupied territory is illegal under international law and "may amount to war crimes”, he added.
Colville’s comments came after 15 Palestinians were arrested in East al-Quds overnight after protests over an eviction threat against four Palestinian families.
The second straight night of arrests in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood was fuelled by a years-long land dispute between Palestinian refugees and Zionist settlers in the strategic district near Old City.
Tensions are high over a long-running legal case over the homes of four Palestinian families on land claimed by Zionists.
UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, said on Thursday he was concerned over the latest developments concerning eviction of Palestinian families.
"I urge Israel to cease demolitions and evictions, in line with its obligations under international humanitarian law,” Wennesland said in a statement.
Meanwhile, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Britain urged the Zionist regime to halt settlement-building in the occupied West Bank.
In another development, Zionist troops shot and killed two young Palestinian men and seriously injured another in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli police, in a statement released on Friday, alleged that the three Palestinians were armed with makeshift Carlo-style submachine guns and knives, and they opened fire on the gate of the Salem base before being shot by Zionist troops.
There were no reports of Israeli injuries in the purported incident.
Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine to the United Nations Riyad Mansour has stressed the need for the international community to reject the Zionist regime’s vicious attempts to taint criticism of its crimes across the occupied territories.
In a letter addressed to the UN secretary-general, the head of the UN Security Council and the president of the UN General Assembly, Mansour wrote that the occupying regime has been sparing no effort to demonize the rights groups which expose its crimes, Wafa news agency reported.
"The situation in Occupied Palestine continues to worsen as Israel intensifies its human rights violations and war crimes against the Palestinian people,” said Mansour.
Meanwhile, more than 180 Israeli intellectuals, authors and academics have called on the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s chief prosecutor not to accept the regime’s own findings into war crimes across the occupied territories, noting that the regime does not intend to carry out a serious investigation into the matter.
The group of Israelis suggested in a letter addressed to Fatou Bensouda that The Hague-based tribunal should instead obtain the assistance of Israeli human rights organizations to gather evidence of war crimes committed by Zionist troops.
The letter was signed by 185 people, including 10 Israel Prize recipients and 35 professors, in addition to senior reserve army officers, authors, intellectuals, activists and researchers.