TPC Staff
The Palestine Chronicle / November 16, 2024
“It is time for the UN to act decisively, expel Israel, and we agree to isolate Israel from the international community.”
Indonesia has called on the United Nations to “act decisively” and expel Israel from the world body over its ongoing genocidal war that has killed more than 43,000 people in Gaza and over 3,000 in Lebanon since October last year.
“Expel Israel from the UN because the genocide carried out by the Israeli military continues, and more and more victims are falling,” Mardani Ali Sera, the chairperson of the Committee for Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation of the Indonesian House of Representatives (DPR RI) said in a statement released on Thursday, according to the Indonesian news agency, Antara.
Sera said Israel has violated the UN Charter, which “emphasizes peace, respect for human rights, and international cooperation,” the report said.
“So it is time for the UN to act decisively, expel Israel, and we agree to isolate Israel from the international community,” he reportedly stressed.
The chairperson also urged the UN to consider other calls made against Israel, including the one made at this week’s extraordinary Arab and Islamic Summit held in Riyadh.
“The Arab League-OIC Summit has issued a resolution to freeze Israel’s membership of the UN. Indonesia and other countries have firmly requested that Israel be expelled,” he said.
Arab-Islamic summit’s resolution
The summit, convened by Saudi Arabia to discuss the ongoing crisis in Gaza and Lebanon, issued a comprehensive resolution calling for a range of urgent measures.
Central to the resolution was a call on the United Nations Security Council to enact a binding resolution “under Chapter VII of the United Nations’ Charter, to compel Israel, the occupying power, to a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, to allow the entry of immediate and sufficient humanitarian aid to all areas of the Strip”.
The resolution also called on the international community “to fully implement the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice dated July 19, 2024 towards ending the Israeli occupation, removing its effects, and paying compensation for its damages, as soon as possible.”
It also condemned “in the strongest terms what is unveiled of the horrific and shocking crimes committed by the Israeli occupation army in the Gaza Strip in the context of the crime of genocide.”
Arms embargo call
In his speech at the summit, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim reiterated his call for the UN to impose an immediate arms embargo on Israel.
“The international community must act swiftly and forcefully. As an immediate measure, we must push, as Malaysia did at the UN General Assembly in September, to impose an immediate arms embargo against Israel,” Ibrahim said.
“For the sake of not only the Palestinians but of humanity itself, we must punish and deter Israel’s repeated violations of international law and norms,” he stressed.
Over 50 leaders from across the Arab and Muslim world attended the summit.
Staggering death toll
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 43,736 Palestinians have been killed, and 103,370 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
Millions displaced
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
