Palestinians to Submit Ending Israeli Occupation Draft Resolution

The Palestinian leadership decided to submit the Palestinian-Arab draft resolution, to set a two-year deadline to end the Israeli occupation, for vote in the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, following the meeting which is set to be held between the Arab ministers of foreign affairs and US Secretary of State John Kerry and European ministers on Tuesday.

The Palestinian leadership announced late Sunday night the decision, which also aims at recognizing a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders, following an open meeting with President Mahmoud Abbas in the presidential headquarters in Ramallah, Palestinian News and Information Agency (WAFA) reported on Monday.

According to the statement, the leadership instructed the executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its national institutions to take all necessary steps which are bound to establish the State of Palestine on the ground and work to re-examine all relations and links with Israel that are inconsistent with Palestine’s right to sovereignty over its territory, including all forms of coordination which is used by Israel to impede the exercise of sovereignty over the land and to ensure the rights of the Palestinian people.

It called on the leadership to hasten the formation of an independent and international investigation committee and the realization of international accountability for the assassination of Minister Ziad Abu Ein, through a competent international tribunal.

It stressed the need to develop all forms of peaceful popular resistance against Israel across the Palestinian territories and settlement activities and to defend the land, national and human rights.

President Mahmoud Abbas convened the Palestinian leadership to examine the issues and challenges that the Palestinian people are confronted with during this delicate and exceptional period.

The leadership affirmed that Israel is fully responsible for Abu Ein’s murder and applauded calls made by various countries and international bodies, including the UN Security Council, to hold the perpetrators accountable and form an independent international investigation committee to look into the circumstances of Abu Ein’s death, stressing that it rejects all Israeli attempts to evade responsibility for the crime.

It noted that the draft resolution has to incorporate items of the Arab Peace Initiative and Palestinian well-established national principles, including the identification of East Jerusalem as the future Palestinian capital and an integral part of the occupied Palestinian Territory and guaranteeing the right of Palestinian refugees in line with the UN General Assembly resolution 194.

The leadership applauded the resolutions passed by many European and Latin American parliaments urging their respective governments to officially recognize the State of Palestine, which affirms the unprecedentedly increasing international will and public opinion to defend the Palestinian people’s rights, reject the Israeli colonial racist policies and apartheid regime.

It expressed appreciation for Switzerland’s decision to host a meeting on December 17 for the signatories to the Fourth Geneva Convention, to examine the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Such a step would have an extraordinary effect on defying Israel’s violations of the international and humanitarian law, said the statement. This move is also part of growing international efforts aiming to subdue Israel’s "racial discrimination," including seizure of land, settlement construction and expansion, house demolitions, destruction of infrastructure, looting of natural resources, and violations of the holy sites in Jerusalem.

The leadership called for mobilizing all international diplomatic and political efforts to end the Israeli occupation.

It underscored ongoing efforts aimed at ensuring a timely and prompt fulfillment of the Gaza Reconstruction plan through the Consensus Government, calling upon all sides to remove the obstacles facing reconstruction efforts.

The leadership called upon all national parties to adhere to national unity and bolster national reconciliation.