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NEW YORK: Israel\u2019s \u201cdecades-long ethnic cleansing\u201d of the Palestinian people \u201chas reached its height through the commission of genocide,\u201d Palestine\u2019s permanent observer to the UN told the Security Council on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Riyad Mansour cited a string of statements by senior Israeli officials that amount to open declarations of a plan to forcibly remove Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank.<\/p>\n
In a five-page letter to Security Council President Jerome Bonnafont, Mansour said Israeli officials \u201care proudly declaring their ethnic cleansing plan, enunciating their decades-long policy to remove the Palestinian people from their land, and rapidly and actively implementing their crimes on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter, seen by Arab News, quotes Defense Minister Israel Katz telling an interviewer on Sept. 2 that \u201cthere\u2019s no real solution for Gaza in the end without migration,\u201d and that Israel is \u201corganized and prepared to get them out \u2014 by sea, by air, by every way possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Katz said \u201cthe plan hasn\u2019t been cancelled; it\u2019s being discussed all the time, even now, and I think there\u2019s no other solution for everyone\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that \u201ctoday, 70 percent of Gaza\u2019s territory is a desert thanks to what the Israeli army has done; there are no longer any inhabitants or houses there,\u201d and that Israeli forces have \u201creoccupied the refugee camps in the West Bank and expelled 40,000 Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Katz denied the existence of Jewish settler violence, saying: \u201cThere is no Jewish terror. I have cancelled that term. Terrorism is committed by those who act against the State of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Sept. 7, he said he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had instructed the military \u201cto prepare for the opening of a full-scale war\u201d in the West Bank, including \u201cthe evacuation of residents from cities and villages … exactly as we did in the security zones in Gaza,\u201d and announced plans for \u201ctargeted eliminations\u201d of senior Palestinian Authority officials.<\/p>\n
The letter cites Netanyahu filming himself at a military post in Gaza on Sept. 2 saying: \u201cWe are not withdrawing. We are staying on this line. We control 60 percent of the strip. And there is still more to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
The same day, it says, he visited a religious school in the city of Sderot and looked on as young settlers chanted: \u201cAnd we will take vengeance, one eye for the two eyes of Palestine, may its name be erased.\u201d<\/p>\n
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir unveiled a plan on Sept. 3 called \u201cDisengagement 710,\u201d which he said would \u201cencourage the voluntary migration of 1.86 million Gazans within seven years.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said 250,000 Palestinians would be removed from Gaza in the first year and a million within three years, adding: \u201cIt is possible. It is realistic. It is in our hands. It is within our ability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ben-Gvir said a survey found that \u201c76 percent of Israeli society support encouraging immigration from Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter references a video generated by artificial intelligence that Ben-Gvir posted showing Palestinian detainees entering what it described as a slaughterhouse-style conveyor system, and a separate video of him telling women detainees: \u201cThe good conditions in the prisons are over … I\u2019m glad we lowered these conditions to the bare minimum.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter links this rhetoric to reports of Israeli soldiers marking Palestinian detainees with numbers on their bodies, including a case in which a man identified as Ahmad Al-Hathnawi was released with the number 44 written on his forehead. The Israeli military acknowledged the practise, saying \u201clessons have been learned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds a ministerial post within the Defense Ministry overseeing settlement policy, announced a new settlement near Bethlehem on Sept. 3 and said: \u201cWe want to bring a million settlers.\u201d<\/p>\n
He repeated the assertion that \u201cthere is no such thing as a Palestinian people,\u201d and on Sept. 7 said the PA \u201cshould be brought down,\u201d declaring that the Oslo Accords are \u201cnull and void anyways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s Chief Rabbi David Yosef told a crowd on Aug. 22 that Palestinians \u201care not a people\u201d and \u201chave no rights here.\u201d The crowd responded: \u201cAmen. May the Holy One, blessed be He, destroy all of Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter documents the \u201cinfrastructure of ethnic cleansing\u201d on the ground, saying Israeli forces demolished the village of Khirbet Al-Tabban in the past week, displacing more than 70 people and bringing to 47 the number of Palestinian communities erased since October 2023.<\/p>\n
It says Israeli settlers and soldiers killed teenagers Omar Al-Nassan, 17, and Khalil Abu Alia, 16, in the village of Al-Mughayyir the same day Israel\u2019s president told CNN that his country was making a \u201cmajor effort\u201d to curb settler violence.<\/p>\n
Citing a UN report issued on Sept. 4, Mansour said Israeli forces \u201ckilled civilians, destroyed hundreds of homes … and went door to door forcing residents to leave\u201d in the Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarm refugee camps, and displaced families \u201cwere told by Israeli officers there would be no more refugee camps and that they should all go to Jordan.\u201d More than 40,000 Palestinians remain displaced from the camps, the letter says.<\/p>\n
In Gaza, 2.3 million people, including a million children, remain confined to less than a third of the territory\u2019s area, with 1.9 million displaced and two-thirds of households living in tents.<\/p>\n
More than 30,000 tents are being held at border crossings against a need for 130,000 before winter, and roughly two-thirds of Gaza\u2019s population face crisis-level food insecurity or worse.<\/p>\n
More than 30 Palestinians were killed in Gaza between Aug. 28 and Sept. 7, including 8-year-old Wafaa Akila and her father.<\/p>\n
They were killed as he drove her to school, bringing to more than 270 the number of children killed since the ceasefire was announced.<\/p>\n
Mansour welcomed recent moves by Britain, France, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Norway and Belgium to restrict settlement products and sanction those financing the settlement enterprise, as well as similar steps under consideration in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Poland, Portugal and Sweden.<\/p>\n
He called on the Security Council to go further, urging states to halt arms transfers, close diplomatic missions in Jerusalem, and impose travel bans and asset freezes.<\/p>\n
\u201cAction, not statements, will help the Palestinian people to survive Israel\u2019s ethnic cleansing campaign,\u201d Mansour wrote, calling it \u201cthe most organized, methodic, and broadcasted ethnic cleansing campaign in modern history.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter is the 892nd that Palestine has sent to the Security Council on the situation since September 2000, according to the Palestinian mission to the UN.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n