Iran rights body: Equivocal statements legitimize Israel's crimes, encourage their repetition

The Iranian Judiciary’s High Council for Human Rights says ambiguous positions adopted by international bodies, including the United Nations, on the ongoing massacre of Palestinians by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip are aimed at legitimizing Tel Aviv’s crimes and encourage their repetition by the occupying regime.

In a Sunday letter to UN Secretary General of Antonio Guterres, the council called for serious action to stop the Zionist regime’s crimes against the people of Palestine.

“Inviting both parties to the conflict without any condemnation for the child-killing, occupying regime or any reference to the right of legitimate self-defense against a regime, whose very presence in the Palestinian territories is based on usurpation and occupation, can not only be considered as a step toward legitimizing the crimes of the Zionist regime in Palestine, but also a clear, systematic violation of the right of nations to self-determination,” it said.

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Israeli warplanes have bombed the home of the Hamas leader in Gaza City, as the Tel Aviv regime’s latest aggression against the enclave enters the seventh day.

The Iranian rights council noted that the UN’s call for restraint on the part of the parties to “an unfair conflict,” while the Palestinians’ elementary defensive actions are in no way comparable with the crimes of the armed-to-the-teeth Israeli regime, amounts to “supporting the occupier, consolidating the occupation, continuing aggression and assisting in aggression.”

It emphasized the constant breach of the basic rights of the Palestinians in the form of acts of aggression by the Zionist regime, including the intensification of genocidal operations, racism, Judaization, illegal settlement construction, forceful eviction of Palestinians from their land, racial cleansing and attacks on the Bab al-Amoud and Sheikh Jarrah neighborhoods of the occupied East Jerusalem al-Quds.

The criminal Zionists are intensifying their attacks on a daily basis amid an apparently deliberate inaction of international circles and many countries who claim to defend human rights, the letter said.

It added that silence and inaction of world bodies on such blatant Israeli crimes and the issuance of ambiguous statements, which aim to legitimize the Zionist regime’s behavior, are grounds for Israel’s crimes.

Directly addressing the UN chief, the council said, “While strongly condemning the savage crimes of the Quds-occupying regime and indifference or implied consent of some countries and international bodies toward these crimes ... the Islamic Republic of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights persistently requires you, as the highest ranking UN official, to use all the existing capacities in line with your missions and duties, to stop these crimes and bring to justice those who are behind them."

Stressing that the UN secretary general should “recognize the status quo as a situation resulting from the violation of jus cogens and compelling rules of the international law,” the Iranian rights council suggested that the United Nations set up a commission of inquiry or launch a fact-finding mission and use all in its power, including Article 99 of the UN Charter, to draw the attention of the Security Council to this gross violation of human rights.

Hamas: We won’t rest assured until al-Quds’ is liberated

Hamas lays emphasis on its determination towards restoring Palestinians’ right to the holy occupied city of al-Quds.

Tensions escalated in Jerusalem al-Quds, the occupied West Bank and Gaza amid the planned expulsion of dozens of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, where illegal Israeli settlers are looking to take over the property of Palestinian families.

The Israeli military and illegal settlers intensified the regime’s violations against Palestinians across al-Quds, including on the al-Aqsa Mosque compound — Islam's third-holiest site — during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.

At least 188 Palestinians, including 55 children and 33 women, have been killed in the Gaza Strip in the past week.

Also in the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have killed at least 13 Palestinians.

Palestinian Ambassador to the European Union has called on Brussels to take a more "realistic" approach toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, saying Europe bears great responsibility to resolve the situation.

Abdalrahim Alfarra told Russia’s Sputnik news agency that the EU needs to “take a more realistic stance” as it “bears great responsibility” over the ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and the occupying regime.

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