Implementation of international law and UN resolutions in our region must no longer be conditional on the consent of the Israeli occupier. At this moment, and following the Israeli air-raid on Gaza on 20 November, extensive shooting by Israeli military and settlers, as well as shelling of Palestinian communities, is being reported from all over the occupied Gaza Strip and West Bank. The right to self-determination and continued occupation stand in fundamental conflict.
Continued occupation is the root cause of the present situation.
It is the machinery of occupation which produces the systematic violation of the range of other individual and collective rights provided for by the Covenant, including the right to liberty and security of person, the right to freedom of movement, the right to control one's own natural resources, and others. It is the machinery of occupation which produces settlements, closures, checkpoints, home demolitions, land confiscation, destruction of crops, and wanton killings by settlers and occupation forces, which the Palestinian people have continued to endure even during the last 7 years under cover of the peace process. Occupation can be maintained only by violence or the threat of violence. Instead of respecting the principles of human rights and international law, and acknowledging the Palestinian right to self- determination, Israel has declared war on the Palestinian people. It has openly unleashed an arsenal of military violence against them.