2 March 2001 (A/ES-10/61-S/2001/189)
Letter sent by Dr. Nasser Al-Kidwa, Ambassador and Permanent
Observer of Palestine to the U.N., to the Secretary-General of the United
Nations, the President of the Security Council and the President of the
General Assembly: (Killings and Security Council Call to
Action)
Israel, the occupying Power, continues with its bloody
military campaign against the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory, including Jerusalem. Four more Palestinian civilians, including two
children died today as a result of shootings by the Israel occupying forces.
One of the martyrs was a 9 year-old boy, who was shot while playing with a
group of children beneath his family’s apartment in Al-Bireh. The other child
was 13 year-old boy, who was shot on Tuesday, 27 February, and died from the
wounds he had sustained.
Commenting on one of those killed today, the spokesman for
the Israeli army said, "Soldiers saw a man who was preparing to detonate a
bomb and shot him, killing him instantly." This frequent, false justification
for killings used by the Israeli army once again proved to be a lie. The man
turned out to be a poor, mentally-ill person, who was savagely shot by the
soldiers in Gaza, who riddled his body with dart-like projectiles. According
to hospital officials and paramedics, he was shot in the skull, spine and
other parts of the body with more than a dozen projectiles of this unknown
ammunition.
In another brutal action on the 27th of February,
the Israeli occupying forces killed a Palestinian man, who was sitting in his
home in Al-Bireh, with a direct hit by tank shell. Such criminal Israeli
behavior and all other grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention and
violations of instruments of international law being committed by Israel, the
occupying Power, must be urgently brought to an end. The international
community, represented by the United Nations, bears a clear responsibility in
ending this Israeli military campaign and providing protection to the
Palestinian civilians.
Since 18 December 2000, the day the Security Council failed
to adopt a draft resolution that would have led to the establishment of a
United Nations force of military and police observers to be dispatched
throughout the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, 62 Palestinians have
been killed and thousands injured, many critically and permanently. Some of
those lives surely could have been saved had the Council undertaken its
responsibilities and acted on that day. We call upon the Security Council to
take the necessary action with regard to the establishment of the force, thus
contributing to halting the bloodshed and hopefully breathing life into the
Middle East peace process.
In follow-up of my previous letters to you, dated from 29
September 2000 to 27 February 2001 (A/55/432-S/2000/921; A/55/437-S/2000/930;
A/55/450-S/2000/957; A/55/466-S/2000/971; A/55/474-S/2000/984;
A/55/490-S/2000/993; A/ES-10/39-S/2000/1015; A/ES-10/40-S/2000/1025;
A/ES-10/42-S/2000/1068; A/ES-10/43-S/2000/1078; A/ES-10/44-S/2000/1093;
A/ES-10/45-S/2000/1104; A/ES-10/46-S/2000/1107; A/ES-10/47-S/2000/1116;
A/ES-10/48-S/2000/1129; A/ES-10/49-S/2000/1154; A/ES-10/50-S/2000/1173;
A/ES-10/51-S/2000/1185; A/ES-10/52-S/2000/1206; A/ES-10/53-S/2000/1247;
A/ES-10/54-S/2001/7; A/ES-10/55-S/2001/33; A/ES-10/56-S/2001/50;
A/ES-10/57-S/2001/101; A/ES-10/58-S/2000/131; A/ES-10/59-S/2001/156; and
A/ES-10/60-S/2000/175), I am enclosing in the annex to this letter the names
of the 5 Palestinian martyrs killed since my last letter. The killing of these
5 civilians brings the total number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli
occupying forces since 29 September 2000 to 366 martyrs.
Names of Martyrs killed by Israeli security forces
in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem
(Tuesday, 27 February through Friday, 2 March 2001)
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Tuesday, 27 February 2001
- Na’im Ahmed Al-Badareen
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Friday, 2 March 2001
- Ubay Darraj (9 years old)
- Mohammed Mahmoud Hellis (13 years old, from wounds sustained on 27
February)
- Mustafa Al-Ramlawi
- Abdel Karim Issa
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