The United Nations overwhelmingly passed a resolution on Wednesday demanding that Israel urgently end its illegal occupation of Palestinian land, a vote that comes just weeks before Israel’s military offensive that has caused a devastating humanitarian crisis in Gaza reaches one year.
Out of the UN General Assembly’s 193 member states, 124 of them voted in favour of the resolution presented by the Palestinian mission to the world body. Fourteen states voted against the resolution ― including Israel’s closest ally and primary weapons supplier, the United States ― while 43 states abstained. There are no vetoes in the General Assembly, unlike the 15-member Security Council.
“Please stand on the right side of history, with international law, with freedom, with peace,” Palestinian ambassador Riyad Mansour, who introduced the resolution, told the body on Tuesday. “The alternative is what you witness every day on your TV screens. And what the Palestinian people are enduring in their flesh. A different reality is possible. It starts now, and here. Free Palestine.”
The nonbinding resolution demands that Israel “brings an end without delay its unlawful presence” of occupied Palestinian territories like Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The Israeli government must end its illegal occupation by withdrawing all of its forces and evacuating its settlers from Palestinian land within the next 12 months, according to the draft.
In addition, the resolution calls for Israel to pay reparations to Palestinians for damage accrued by its occupation, and urges member states to impose sanctions on those responsible for maintaining Israel’s presence in the territories, and halt weapons transfers to Israel.
“This is a shameful decision that backs the Palestinian Authority’s diplomatic terrorism,” Israel’s UN Ambassador, Danny Danon, said following the vote ― accusing the General Assembly and the Palestinian Authority of being sympathetic to Hamas, whose militants killed about 1,200 people and captured hundreds in Israel nearly one year ago.
Since then, the Israeli military has killed more than 41,000 people in Gaza and rendered the territory virtually unliveable. Aid groups say the collapse of necessary food and medical infrastructure has caused a humanitarian catastrophe, while multiple UN member states and human rights experts have described Israel’s ongoing violence as genocidal.
The resolution was drawn from a July advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice that said Israel’s decades-long presence in the Palestinian territories is illegal and must urgently come to a halt. According to the court, Israel violated international law by capturing Palestinian land by force during the 1967 war, giving it no right to sovereignty over the territories.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that she voted against the “one-sided” resolution because it did not recognise Hamas as a terrorist organisation and “will not bring about tangible progress for Palestinians.” The US has unconditionally supplied Israel with weapons and has condemned efforts by the international community to hold the Israeli government accountable.
Palestine is considered a “Permanent Observer State” after the UN rejected its request to become a member state in 2011. Having Permanent Observer status allows Palestine to still participate in UN proceedings ― except for voting on draft resolutions and decisions in bodies like the Security Council, General Assembly and the six main committees.
In April, Palestine renewed its request to become a member state by sending a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who forwarded it to the Security Council. The following month, the General Assembly passed a resolution that upgrades Palestine’s observer rights at the body, allowing the state to submit and introduce proposals, make statements on behalf of a group, fully participate in UN conferences, and elect delegates of the State of Palestine as officers in the plenary and the main committees of the General Assembly.
Mansour said that peace in the region can only be possible if there is a just, two-state solution to the long-debated Israeli-Palestinian conflict, based on the 1967 borders. And that such a solution cannot be reached if states believe “this is not the right time for such action,” he said.
“I stand on this podium, at this historic and tragic juncture, to tell the Palestinian people that a change is going to come, that their fate is not endless suffering and agony, that freedom is their birthright and their destiny,” Mansour told the General Assembly. “We are not a people too many. We are not a problem. We are a nation that asks for nothing more than your nations, but can accept nothing less.”