Qatar has also welcomed the professional and objective report of the fact-finding mission headed by Richard Goldstone, which was submitted to the aforesaid Council.
This came in a statement delivered by Mansour Abdullah Al Sulaitin , the second secretary of Qatar’s delegation to the United Nations and the other international organizations in Geneva, before the Human Rights Council at its 12th session in Geneva to discuss the human rights situation in Palestine and the occupied Arab territories.
Al Sulaitin said that the two reports considered the overall siege Israel imposes on the Gaza Strip before and after the military attack is regarded a collective punishment based on carrying out a systematic policy aimed at isolating the Gaza Strip and depriving its population of the basic rights and human needs.
Elaborating, he said that during the Israeli military operation, homes, factories, water wells, schools, hospitals, police stations and other public buildings were devastated and demolished. In this regard, he pointed out that after the elapse of nine months of the end of the military offensive, Palestinian families are still living in the rubble of destroyed houses owing to the impossibility of reconstruction in light of the blockade and the lack of construction materials, the matter which is considered a flagrant infringement on the right to housing as being an element of the right to an adequate standard of living.
He noted that the key findings of the mission’s report is that accidents and violations committed by the Israeli authorities, and which have been investigated by the mission are the result of deliberate machinations and as per clearcut political decisions on part of the israeli occupation authorities. This in turn assures the availability of the criminal intention of the acts committed which would establish proof on the criminal nature of the Israeli violations.
Sulaitin said that the two reports forwarded to the Council stressed that the Israeli authorities had violated the principles and rules of international humanitarian law foremost among which the principle of distinction between the military and the civilian, in one part, and between the military targets and the civil targets on the other in addition to the flagrant violation of the principle of proportionality to the effect that it has been impossible in any way to justify oppression and violence and abuse in the use of machines of war and destruction, the matter which makes these grave violations tantamount to crimes against humanity.
