(Rima Khalaf, UN Under-Secretary General and ESCWA Executive Secretary)

ICSFT echoes the reality of the findings of ESCWA report and rejects the secretary general's decision to pull it down. We urgently call for the report to be reinstated. We also reject the reasons that pay her Excellency, the executive secretary of ESCWA, Dr. Rima Khalaf to resign; demanding to recover her right with ESCWA by re-inserting the report. This is going to ensure that UN and its bodies still have credibility in front of peoples; we can't achieve that without people like Rima Khalaf with her Staff and assistants. Voices like theirs are much needed to challenge the mainstream discourse, pressures and threats by powerful states which title regard for international values or human rights and unable to defend their policies full of double standards, selectivity, politically driven and violating law.

ICSFT calls for the UN to take strong measures to bring an end to the ongoing illegal occupation of Palestinian territories, which is the root cause for the ongoing human rights violation by Israel according to the ESCWA report and hundreds of other UN's reports, as well to exert real pressure on Israel to investigate these crimes mentioned in the report and bring the authors of these violations to justice.

This statement comes after a new ground breaking UN report commissioned and published by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) called out Israel’s occupation of Palestine as “apartheid regime”, and called for “support boycott, divestment and sanctions and respond positively to calls for such initiatives”. It states that “UN organs should sanction Israel and coordinate with civil society groups and boycott campaigns. Apartheid is a crime against humanity”. Following Israel’s UN envoy Danny Danon condemnation of the report, the UN withdrew the report and stated, “its views do not reflect those of the Secretary-General”. Rima Khalef, UN Under-Secretary General and ESCWA Executive Secretary “has resigned over what she described as the pressure to withdraw a report that was critical of Israel”. This is such a mockery of the founding human rights principles, especially for a human rights body, whose charter pays regard to human rights in so many words.

Around 4 million Palestinians are under military occupation without the right to vote and are denied of equal rights by Israel under a system of apartheid - a deliberate policy of racial or ethnic segregation. Amongst others;

• No freedom of expression, assembly, movement,

• No due process and impartial judiciary,

• And other socio-economic oppressions – Palestinian borders are controlled and besieged by Israel, all import and export and movement between town and cities.

Over the last 15 years, 5’500 innocent Palestinians civilians were killed by Israeli forces and not a single Israeli soldier has been held accountable. Further, in the occupied territories, more than 66 persons of Palestinians living in absolute poverty, by contrast, Israelis enjoy an average per capita income of nearly 60$ per day. Even worse, 80% of Palestinians in Gaza are dependent on international food aid for survival. Palestinians also face discrimination in employment and working conditions. According to the International Displacement Monitoring Center, 263,500 Palestinians have been displaced as of July 2015. These are just some of the many aspects of Israeli apartheid policies against Palestinians.

Israel’s settlement in occupied Palestinian territory is illegal under international law, as reaffirmed by the international court of justice’s advisory opinion on Israel’s separation wall in 2004. This fact was also remarked by international finding mission on Israeli settlement “all Israeli settlement in OPT are illegal. The fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from transferring its civilian population into an occupied territory”.

UN’s key purpose and guiding principle is making the promotion and protection of human rights a priority. However, the current trend of selective human rights approach proves otherwise. By merit, the UN is contradicting its own founding charter by pulling down a report that clearly highlights Israeli policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid, which is a clear violation of human rights.