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Mr. Chairman,
We would like to thank the Secretary General for submitting to the 59th
session a comprehensive report on this important issue.
2. The report is a reminder to the international community of the deepening
economic and social hardship to which the Palestinians have been subjected to by
the occupying power in violation of their right to self-determination. The
report provides a detailed account of persistent decline in the living
conditions, continuing confiscation of Palestinian land, arbitrary detention,
increased restrictions of humanitarian service, brutal military operation, and
assassination of prominent political figures by the occupying power.
3. The Secretary General has concluded that the accumulated consequences of
occupation have brought the Palestinian territory to “war torn economy” status
and that its continuation has led to “new forms of dispossession and destruction
of private and public assets of all kinds”.
Mr. Chairman,
4. The military operations conducted by the Israeli forces, over the past year,
have negatively impacted on the lives of the Palestinian people. Some of the
sterling facts provided by the Secretary General include:
i. Intensification of extra-judicial killings of prominent political figures,
which has since March 2004, resulted in the death of 349 Palestinians, including
at least 137 bystanders, among them 35 children and 25 women.
ii. Erection of West Bank separation barrier, which fragments the Palestinian
land, sever links between communities from their land and further restricts the
people’s access to their farms, jobs and services.
iii. Continued imprisonment of 8000 Palestinian in Israeli prison and detention
centers, of which some 800 are being held without any judicial procedure or
formal charge.
iv. Persistent construction or growth of settlements in blatant disregard to the
Quartet road map. The total area confiscated for settlement, or designated as
military zones in the Gaza Strip amounts to 45% of the Gaza territory,
benefiting 7000 settlers.
v. Exploitative use of Palestinian resources such as water. Israel extracts 85%
of the water from the occupied territories and has created a serious water
shortage for the Palestinians.
vi. Incessant restrictions on the movement of Palestinian people. Curfew and job
loss has severely affected the food production. Currently, the territory is not
self-sufficient in food. Chronic malnutrition now afflicts nearly 17.5% of the
Children in Gaza and 7.9% in the West Bank; and
vii. Depleting economy, which has lost all of its growth achieved during the
preceding 15 years. About 47% of households have lost more than 50% of their
income. As a result poverty is spiraling, with the rate having risen to 60% of
the population.
Mr. Chairman,
5. The occupied people of the Syrian Golan are in no different situation. The
unabated expansion and confiscation of land by the Israeli occupation of the
Syrian Golan Heights, crippling restrictions on movement of Syrian Arabs and
eroding social infrastructure such as health centers has led to marked
deterioration in the social and economic strata of the Syrian Golan including
dismemberment of families.
Mr. Chairman,
6. Pakistan has steadfastly and unequivocally supported the just struggle for
the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as it supports all those people
suffering under alien occupation or foreign domination.
7. There can be no lasting peace in the Middle Ease without the attainment of
the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people. As said by President Pervez
Mushrraf, the international community particularly the United States must work
to secure a fair and peaceful solution of the problem, realizing the vision of
two states – Israel and Palestine – living side by side in peace, harmony and
security. We hope that the faithful implementation of the Quartet’s “Road Map”
and resumption of dialogue between the two parties would lay the foundations for
a permanent peace in the Middle East.
Mr. Chairman,
8. A durable settlement of the Middle East question by definition must also
include the restoration of the Syrian Golan. A durable peace in the Middle East
is simply not possible in the absence of justice.
I thank you, Mr. Chairman.