U.N. Chief Reports on Palestinians, Urges Meeting of Geneva Signatories

Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, in a report on the Israeli administered territories, supports a meeting of the signatories to the Fourth Geneva Convention as a way of enhancing the safety and protection of the Palestinians.

The report, which extensively details the treatment of Palestinians in the administered territories from the end of December through the end of February, also criticizes Israeli authorities for using collective punishment, such as curfews and the demolition of houses of suspected intifada activists.

When reached for comment, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Yoram Aridor, called the report “unbalanced” and reiterated his country’s opposition to a meeting of the signatories to the convention, which addresses the rights of civilians living under occupation.

The report “doesn’t give the appropriate weight to the fact that Israel was attacked during this time by Iraqi Scud missiles,” the ambassador said.

“It also does not attach the appropriate weight to the fact that Israel only responds to vicious and mortal attacks by Arab terrorists against Jewish civilians, and Israel has to do what is necessary in order to defend its population,” he added.

Perez de Cuellar writes that a meeting of signatories to the convention is not, “as some have suggested, intended to politicize the issues at stake.” Rather, he says, it is a way for other countries to ensure that Israel is respecting the convention. The report was submitted to the Security Council last week.

Although Israel has refused to accept the legal application of the convention to the administered territories, Israeli officials say they uphold the humanitarian provisions of the convention in their treatment of the Palestinians.

But according to the U.N. report, Palestinians in the administered territories have faced a number of problems over the past few months, including inadequate distribution of gas masks during the Persian Gulf war, when Iraq threatened to attack Israel with non-conventional weapons.

The Israeli High Court of Justice issued a similar ruling on Jan. 14, three days before war broke out, but Israeli authorities did not have enough masks or nerve gas antidotes to hand out to all the Palestinian residents of the West Bank, the report says.

The report goes on to criticize Israel for imposing an extended, around-the-clock curfew on the administered territories, which led to a halt in economic and educational activities and adversely affected the availability of medical services.

Citing the Israeli human rights group B’tselem and others, the report says that 1,714 West Bank Palestinians and 600 from the Gaza Strip were arrested for violating the curfew, and “hundreds of persons arrested for violating the curfew were tried in ‘quick courts’ and without legal representation.”

ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO DEFEND ITSELF

Perez de Cuellar adds that during the period covered by the report, “the Israeli authorities carried out other collective punishments, such as the demolition of homes and uprooting of trees.”

The secretary-general also mentions the Jan. 8 expulsion of four Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip, an action which the Security Council unanimously criticized in a Dec. 20 resolution when Israel’s plans to resume deportations were first announced.

Aridor said Israel has the right to defend itself “against the murderous attacks by terrorists, and what we do, we do only in order to quiet the areas.”

The 14-page report was requested by the Security Council in the December resolution, in which the 15 members expressed grave concern at the “dangerous deterioration of the situation in all the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem.”

That resolution was the third one last fall critical of Israel that the United States supported. The United States was at that time embroiled in strengthening its Arab coalition against Iraqi aggression.

Perez de Cuellar is in the process of soliciting opinions from signatories to the Fourth Geneva Convention about the practicality of calling such a meeting. Aridor last month informed Perez de Cuellar that Israel “categorically objects” to the idea of holding such a meeting, as does the United States.

Perez de Cuellar points out in his report that taking measures in line with the convention, such as appointing a protecting power for the Palestinians, “requires the consent of the occupying power.”

It is highly unlikely Israel would give such consent.