The UN General Assembly’s Second Committee has overwhelmingly adopted a resolution affirming the Palestinian people’s permanent sovereignty over their natural resources.
The United Nations General Assembly’s Second Committee on Wednesday adopted the resolution affirming the permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people and the residents of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights over their natural resources.
Introduced by Uruguay on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, the draft resolution on permanent sovereignty of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East al-Quds, and of the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan over their natural resources was adopted with 151 votes in favor, including all member states of the European Union and Canada, seven against, including those of the United States and Israel, and 11 abstentions.
The resolution reaffirms the Palestinian people’s enduring and inalienable rights over their national wealth and resources and stresses the need to implement the Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians.
It also recognizes the Palestinians’ right to seek restitution for the exploitation, damage, loss, depletion or endangerment of their natural resources resulting from illegal measures taken by the Israeli regime and Israeli settlers.
The document further calls on the occupying entity to halt all actions that harm the environment in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East al-Quds, and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, such as dumping waste, and to stop destroying vital infrastructure, including water pipelines, sewage systems and electricity networks.
“Israel does not get to pretend it cares for the well-being of the people it is occupying and killing,” said the Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, Minister Riyad Mansour, after the vote.
He called adoption by an overwhelming majority “a powerful reaffirmation”, stressing that “the devastating images we have all witnessed from Gaza speak for themselves,” and highlighting the “systematic attack on our most valuable and sacred resource — our people” and all that is required to sustain life in besieged Gaza Strip.
Mansour also warned that the olive harvest - “an eternal bond between a people and their homeland” - is a centuries-old tradition the survival of which is under attack.
The resolution stressed, among others, that the Tel Aviv regime’s construction of settlements, the so-called separation wall, and other actions are detrimental to the Palestinian environment.
Israel began building the separation wall in 2002. It runs deep inside Palestinian territory rather than along the boundary with the occupied territories. In 2004, the International Court of Justice ruled it illegal.
The resolution further demands that Israel immediately cease its plundering and illegal exploitation of natural resources in the occupied territories.
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