YouSaid · the spoken record

Epshtain

lines on the record: 10
first: 2023-12-29
most recent: 2023-12-29
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“The Council can lay the path towards human security and peace by addressing the root causes of the conflict. Bringing the occupation of Palestinian territory to a close is essential to ending the suffering and enabling aid workers to deliver critical relief in the hope of recovery to those in need.”
2023-12-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9522 (2023) · source
“Protecting civilians from harm — Israelis and Palestinians alike — by all possible means is a fundamental norm of international law that must be respected by all. Reversing annexation and redressing settlement expansion, settler violence and forcible transfer are therefore imperative demands. Civilians are desperate for safety, shelter, food and life-saving treatment for the injured and sick. The Norwegian Refugee Council stresses that peace is the only viable solution for civilians in occupied Palestinian territory and Israel. A mutually agreed armistice agreement suspending active hostilities between the belligerents is a necessary stepping stone towards the pacific resolution of the question of Palestine through such measures outlined in Article 33 of the Charter of the United Nations, including arbitration and judicial settlement.”
2023-12-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9522 (2023) · source
“The Council must demand that Israeli authorities respect and protect the rights of Palestinians, abide by the provisions of the law of occupation and the applicable rules on the use of lethal force and work to de-escalate the ongoing violence in the West Bank. Israeli practices in occupied territory, including the extensive destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure, could push the population into forced and protracted displacement, with limited prospects for repatriation and return. The siege laid on Gaza — the maritime and air blockade and the closure on land severing it from the West Bank, which together form a single self-determination unit — must be lifted. The prohibition on aggression precludes the acquisition of territory under the threat or use of force and annexation of any kind and for any alleged reason.”
2023-12-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9522 (2023) · source
“If Israel is not held accountable for those actions, even more Palestinian communities will be forcibly transferred. Israel, as an occupying Power, is responsible for public life, order and safety in occupied territory, carried out within the framework of Article 43 of The Hague Regulations. Law enforcement operations, such as incursions into West Bank cities, are governed by the international human rights law norms and standards of policing, where the use of lethal force is exceptional and possibly unlawful. Israel is bound by the basic principles on the use of force by law enforcement officials, which establishes the use of lethal force as a measure of last resort. Disturbances and tensions in occupied territory allow no for derogation from that rule.”
2023-12-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9522 (2023) · source
“Preventing settler violence and the corollary forcible transfer of Palestinians entails the invocation of Israel’s responsibility for unlawfully transferring its population to occupied territory in order to colonize it. The Council should attribute responsibility to Israel when members of its armed forces, at all ranks and at all times, even when on short-term leave, allow for, and participate in, settler violence, as well as attribute responsibility to Israel when it directly allocates funds and arms to settlement guard squads, often seeming to operate in excess of their prescribed duties and partake in attacks on Palestinians. The Council must not allow Israel to forcibly transfer Palestinians from their land or to continue with the illegal annexation of occupied Palestinian territory in breach of international law.”
2023-12-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9522 (2023) · source
“Every Member State of the Council is obligated to prevent war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, each constituting atrocity crimes. While we mobilize to respond to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza, armed Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank have intensified their campaign of violence against Palestinians. In recent months, whole communities have been forcibly displaced owing to settler violence. Israeli authorities are doing next to nothing to prevent those attacks, resulting in numerous fatalities. Settler violence is often overlooked by Israeli security forces, and even encouraged by officials and ministers of the Israeli Government.”
2023-12-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9522 (2023) · source
“That concern follows Israel’s forcible transfer of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians within Gaza, and explicit statements by Israeli officials endorsing such deportation without reasonable justification, without proper accommodation or services in places of refuge and without guarantees of return once hostilities end. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits individual or mass forcible transfer and deportations of protected persons from occupied territory, regardless of their motive. Doing so constitutes a grave breach of international humanitarian law, codified as a war crime. A gross and systemic breach of a peremptory norm demands that all States cooperate in bringing wrongful behaviour to an end through lawful means, intended to induce the wrongdoing State to comply with its obligations.”
2023-12-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9522 (2023) · source
“The unprecedented levels of loss and destruction require our collective efforts to help meet basic needs and redress the starvation of the civilian population of Gaza, which is ongoing at this very moment. Reversing arbitrary, capricious and unlawful limitations on humanitarian relief imposed by Israel, the occupying Power, remains a normative and operational challenge that must be addressed. As Israeli military operations in Gaza drive civilians closer to its southern borders, the looming possibility of the mass deportation of Palestinians to Egypt grows.”
2023-12-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9522 (2023) · source
“The Norwegian Refugee Council has condemned the atrocious violence launched deliberately and indiscriminately by Hamas against Israeli civilians and continues to call for the immediate release of all hostages held ultra vires and for the humane treatment of Palestinian detainees in keeping with international law. The same legal certainty must also mean a halt to the Israeli offensive, from which ordinary Gazans have no refuge, before it claims the lives of even more civilians — many of them women and children. Indiscriminate Israeli attacks affecting the civilian population and civilian objects, as well as those causing excessive loss of life, injury and damage, must be condemned.”
2023-12-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9522 (2023) · source
“Mr. Epshtain: Twelve weeks of unprecedented hostilities in Israel and Gaza and growing tensions and disturbances in the West Bank have elapsed. I wish to make a few legal observations that underpin the humanitarian crisis to which the Norwegian Refugee Council is responding. Some pertain to serious violations that have been perpetrated and continue to occur; others relate to premeditated atrocities, which should be prevented by the Security Council. All parties — Palestinian armed groups and Israel — have shown reckless disregard for the peremptory norms of international law, including the basic rules of international humanitarian law. They have breached the very rules they must comply with in all circumstances.”
2023-12-29 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.9522 (2023) · source