New York: Qatar stressed the importance of ensuring the Palestinian people enjoy their full rights and exercise their sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Al Quds (East Jerusalem).
Qatar noted the occupying authorities in the occupied Palestinian territories continue to exploit the natural resources in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, and in other occupied Arab territories, and continue to obstruct Palestinians’ access to their resources and property. This is in addition to their attempts to annex lands, demolish homes and displace people from it, damaging agricultural land and orchards and uprooting fruit trees.
This came in the statement of the State of Qatar at the meeting of the Economic and Financial Committee (Second Committee) of the General Assembly.
The statement was read by Third Secretary of the Permanent Mission of the State of Qatar to the United Nations Sheikh Abdulrahman bin Abdulaziz Al Thani.
He cited a report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) detailing the suffering of the Palestinian people and the Arabs at the Golan heights. The report also highlighted the negative impacted the occupation’s practices have on living conditions of Palestinians and Syrians, and COVID-19’s exacerbation of the negative impact on sustainable development.
He noted that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the principles of international law recognise the principle that no one should be deprived of their private property.
He recalled that the General Assembly, in its resolution 76/225, had reaffirmed the principle of the permanent sovereignty of peoples under foreign occupation over their natural resources, and the resolution referred to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and that they must be respected in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan. In the context of what constitutes education as one of the critically elements in enabling sustainable development, especially in areas experiencing conflict.
