Sri Lanka Ambassador to UN says Israeli human right violations must cease

Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dr. Palitha Kohona who serves as Chairman of the UN Special Committee on Israeli Practices in the Occupied Territories says the human rights violations by Israel on occupied territories must stop.



Dr. Kohona led a three-member United Nations committee that included permanent representatives of Malaysia and Senegal on a 13-day fact finding mission recently in Cairo, Amman and Damascus.

Upon completion of its mission, the committee has called for an end to human rights violations by Israel in the occupied territories of the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights, after hearing from dozens of witnesses during the visit to the region.

During the visit, the Committee has heard first-hand accounts of life under Israeli occupation from witnesses across the occupied Palestinian territory and the occupied Syrian Golan.

"The testimonies that we have heard attest to a failure to address the long-standing pattern of serious violations of human rights," Ambassador Palitha Kohona has said of the mission.

"Victims of the systematic and often arbitrary restrictions on human rights and basic freedoms have the right to see justice prevail," Kohona was quoted.

"Violations must cease," he has urged.

The UN citing a news release issued in Damascus said the witnesses from Gaza had stressed the urgency to put an end to the deliberate assaults on the civilian population.

They have told the Committee that they are not being able to reconstruct homes and schools destroyed during Israel's 2009 military offensive, due to the three-year-old blockade imposed against Gaza, as well as the alarming situation of the water and sanitation systems, which has serious implications for the health of Gaza's 1.5 million residents.

A UN statement said testimonies from the West Bank highlighted issues of forced displacement, settler violence, home demolitions and evictions, notably in East Jerusalem, and the targeting of peaceful activists.

The Special Committee has been established in December 1968 by the UN General Assembly to examine the human rights situation across the occupied territories.

Since its establishment, the Government of Israel has failed to accommodate requests by the Committee to visit the occupied territories. As a result, the Committee conducts an annual visit to the neighbouring countries of Egypt and Jordan in order to gather information from witnesses with first-hand experience of the human rights situation in the occupied territories.

The Committee will present its report to the General Assembly, upon their return.