Ambassador Ali Ahmed criticizes the silence of the parties, that claim respecting the international law, over the Israeli continued attacks on Syrian territories

Geneva, (ST) – Syria’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva Haider Ali Ahmed affirmed that the Israeli occupation’s continued criminal acts, aggressive policies and attacks on Syrian civilian facilities, with the support of Western countries, requires questioning the silence of the countries that claim protecting and respecting United Nations resolutions, and the parties that claim defending the principles of international law.

Ali Ahmed said during today’s session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva about the human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories: “Although we commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we unfortunately continue to deal in vain with a long-term colonialism based on apartheid that violates all the provisions that humanity has developed in the field of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

Ali Ahmed pointed out that Israeli occupation is determined to peress ahead with the illegal settlement expansion activities, perpetuate the illegal annexation policies and violate the principle of the inadmissiblity of seizing lands by force.

“This settlement policy is implemented by creating a coercive environment that includes discriminatory laws and practices, stealing natural resources, seizing lands, displacing their owners, and creating a geographical and demographic situation that perpetuates the occupation and serves its settlement policies, which it continues to implement unabated, including plans announced at the end of 2021, to increase the number of settlers in the occupied Syrian Golan within five years,” Ali Ahmed added.

The Syrian diplomat stressed that mocking the lives of civilians and continuously committing crimes are the basic and constant feature of the Israeli occupation, whether in the occupied Syrian Golan or in the occupied Palestinian territories, as the occupation confirms, through its aggressive policies and its continuous targeting of Syrian civilian facilities, that it is an essential part of the policies to destabilize regional and international stability.

He said: “In light of this bad situation of an international community that is supposed to be governed by the rule of law, we can only ask, where are the countries that claim to be concerned for human rights in all of this?

Ali Ahmed reiterated that occupied Golan is an integral part of Syria, and that restoring it by all means guaranteed by international law is an eternal right that is not subject to bargaining or concession and is not subject to a statute of limitations.

He called on all countries not to recognize any steps taken by the occupying power to perpetuate its occupation, and stressed the necessity of considering effective measures to dismantle the settlement structures, including by stopping financing or concluding any commercial transactions with entities involved in settlement operations, or exploiting the natural resources in the Golan.

Ali Ahmed reiterated the demand that our people in the Golan must be allowed to visit Syria by opening the Quneitra crossing which is the only crossing that links them to their homeland.

Ali Ahmed stressed Syria’s firm support for the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state with Al-Quds (Jerusalem) as its capital. He also stressed Syria’s condemnation of the crimes of the Israeli occupation, including its systematic and continuous attacks against the Palestinian people, and affirmed Syria’s support for the liberation of the remaining occupied Lebanese territories.

Raghda Sawas