By: Nourdine Jamal
Researcher at Act for Palestine Foundation
On October 24, the international community commemorates the implementation of the United Nations (UN) Charter. In light of this, the UN had issued several resolutions related to defending human rights in favor of Palestine, yet none have been applied on the ground.
UN Resolution 194
The UN Charter issued resolution 194 (12/48) which resolves that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, whereas there are up to 7 million Palestinian refugees, yearning to return home amid total denial form the Israeli Occupation.
The estimated number of Palestinians at the end of 2021 was about 14 million: 5.3 million in the State of Palestine (3.2 million in the West Bank and 2.1 million in the Gaza Strip. Data indicated that 26% of the population in the West Bank are refugees, while the percentage of refugees in the Gaza Strip is 64%. A total of 1.7 million in the 1948 territories, and nearly 7 million in the diaspora (6.3 million live in Arab countries and 750,000 in foreign countries). Palestinian refugees live in four main locations — Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Jordan. Many Palestinian refugees have lived in Lebanon for generations in the country’s 12 camps. Overcrowding and crumbling infrastructure have created unsafe conditions.
Human Rights Violations
The UN Charter also calls for protecting and defending human rights across the globe. As I am writing this, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have been escalating unprecedented violence against Palestinians, killing dozens of teenagers, carrying out multiple military incursions, and launching wide-scale detention campaigns against Palestinians in different regions in the occupied West Bank. What’s more, the occupation warplanes killed another 48 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in 2022, including 16 children, and 4 women, and injured 360. Israeli Occupation has launched up to SIX military aggressions on the Gaza Strip over the past decades, killing at least 4000 residents.
Settlements resolution 2334
In 2016, the UN Security Council issued resolution 2334 which adopted the immediate freezing to the expansion of the Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). The resolution condemned all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character, and status of OPT. In addition, it also banned the transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes, and displacement of Palestinian civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law and relevant resolutions.
“…. Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace,” the resolution stated.
Total Denial
Nonetheless, the Israeli Occupation seems to carelessly tackle such international resolutions with total denial and it has been giving a cold shoulder to all the UN resolutions since its foundation after the Second World War, leaving Palestinians fatless as a straw in the wind.
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