UN Human Rights Council Adopts Resolutions Against Israel’s Human Rights Violations in Syria’s Golan
The United Nations Human Rights Council has adopted a resolution denouncing Israel’s human rights violations against the people in Syria’s occupied Golan Heights, calling on the Tel Aviv regime to stop its repressive measures.
The Geneva-based council endorsed the resolution at its 49th regular session on Friday,urging Israel to comply with the relevant UN resolutions.
In a separate resolution, the council renewed its condemnation of illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East al-Quds, and Syria’s Golan Heights.
The UN body also called for an immediate end to Israel’s continued occupation and illegal settlement activities in the occupied Arab territories.
In another resolution on the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, the council “reaffirmed the Palestinian people’s right to live in freedom, justice, and dignity and the right to their independent State of Palestine.”
During the session, Hussam Edin Aala, Syria’s permanent envoy to the UN in Geneva, said Israel continues its violations of international law and human rights with the full support of the United States.
He further called on the Human Rights Council to hold Israel responsible for these violations.
In 1967, Israel waged a full-scale war against Arab territories, during which it occupied a large swathe of Golan and annexed it four years later – a move never recognized by the international community.
In 1973, another war broke out; and a year later a UN-brokered ceasefire came into force, according to which Tel Aviv and Damascus agreed to separate their troops and create a buffer zone in the Heights. However, Israel has over the past several decades built dozens of illegal settlements in Golan in defiance of international calls for the regime to stop its illegal construction activities.
In a unilateral move rejected by the international community in 2019, former US president Donald Trump signed a decree recognizing Israeli “sovereignty” over Golan.
Last December, Israel announced that it intends to double the number of its illegal settlements in the Golan, despite an earlier resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly demanding the regime’s full withdrawal from the occupied territory.
Nevertheless, Syria has repeatedly reaffirmed its sovereignty over Golan, saying the territory must be completely restored to its control.
The United Nations has also time and again emphasized Syria’s sovereignty over the territory.
Israel also occupied East al-Quds, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the Six-Day Arab-Israeli War in 1967. It later had to withdraw from Gaza.
Nearly 700,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements built since the 1967 occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds.
All the settlements are illegal under international law. The United Nations Security Council has condemned the settlement activities in several resolutions.
Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent state with East al-Quds as its capital.
Source: Press TV