The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) said on Friday that despite oppression and suffering, the Palestinian people are still striving for justice and peace.
This came according to the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of “ESCWA”, Rola Dashti, during the committee’s commemoration of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People at its headquarters in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, according to a statement, a copy of which was received by Anadolu Agency.
Dashti affirmed in a speech that “these people are still striving to achieve justice, to restore rights that are supposed to be self-evident, not out of honor for them, but rather in fulfillment of the right, enforcement of international law, and commitment to human norms and values.”
She added, “We receive condemnation of the occupation, settlement expansion, discrimination, land confiscation, expulsion of residents from their homes and ancestral homes, and exclusion, despite international resolutions that call for stopping these systematic Israeli practices.”
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For his part, the Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister, His Excellency Al-Shami, who represented Prime Minister Najib Mikati during the event, said that “the rights of the Palestinian people are being violated on a daily basis and no one cares, while their violation in another country mobilizes the superpowers and the resurrection of the world takes place.”
Al-Shami stressed that “the politicization of human rights affects it deeply.”
In turn, Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh called, in a remote speech during the event, to “secure protection for the cities and camps in Palestine that are bombed daily.”
Shtayyeh called on “United Nations member states to support Palestine’s full membership in the international organization.”
He stressed “the role of the international community in holding Israel accountable for its crimes against the Palestinian people.”
The event opened with a reading of the message of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, who affirmed “the United Nations’ unwavering support for the Palestinian people in their endeavor to realize their inalienable rights and build a future in which everyone enjoys peace, justice, security and dignity,” stressing “the need to end the (Israeli) occupation.”
The United Nations commemorates the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People on November 29 of each year in memory of the issuance of Resolution 181, known as the Palestine Partition Resolution, in 1947.
There are 12 Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, in which approximately 200,000 people live, under the auspices of the United Nations, in separate parts of the country.