The President of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, this Monday demanded that United Nations (UN) “suspend” Israel due to “aggression” and “occupation” of Palestinian territories, on occasion 75th anniversary of “Nakba”.

For the first time, thanks to a resolution approved in November, the United Nations is celebrating this Monday at its headquarters in New York, The presence of Abbas, which Palestinians refer to as the “Catastrophe” (“Nakba” in Arabic), the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948.

“We now formally demand, in accordance with international law and (UN) resolutions, that Israel be ensured to respect these resolutions or that Israel’s membership in the United Nations be suspended,” the president of the Palestinian Authority said, in a one-hour speech. .

Abbas, who The “State of Palestine” has observer status at the United Nations, spoke in Arabic during a special session of the Committee for the Implementation of the Human Rights of the Palestinian People, where dozens of ambassadors to the United Nations attended.

Israel’s representative, Gilad Erdan, wrote to his counterparts in other member countries urged them to “stay out” of this meeting which he called a “disgusting event” and a “blatant attempt to distort history”

Erdan argued that those attending would tolerate anti-Semitism and give Palestinians a ‘green light’. “to continue to exploit international bodies to promote their slanderous narratives.”

32 states were absent

According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 32 states, including the United States, Canada, Ukraine and 10 European Union countries, were absent.

Meanwhile, UN Deputy Secretary General for Political Affairs and Peace Building, Rosemary DiCarlo, reaffirmed the “clear position of the United Nations”: the occupation must end as it is “unlawful under international law”.

In a powerful and emotional speech, Abbas also attacked the “colonial” powers, that it is “the United Kingdom and the United States, which have direct, political and moral responsibility in the Nakba”.

The “catastrophe” suffered by Palestinians is not over

According to the leader, the “catastrophe” suffered by the Palestinians “did not begin in 1948 and did not end after that date”.

Israel, occupying power, “continues its occupation and aggression against the Palestinian people, continues to reject the Nakba and rejects international resolutions on return of Palestinian refugees“, said Abbas.

The United Nations estimates that Palestine from 1948 still alive and their descendants form a a group of 5.9 million refugees scattered across the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

The exodus and armed conflict after 15 May 1948 is the “Catastrophe” that Palestinians report every year, while Israelis celebrate their country’s independence, which was proclaimed on May 14, 1948.

For President Abbas, who was born in 1935 and has been in power since 2005, Israel “has never fulfilled its obligations and prerequisites for membership” of the United Nations since its independence in 1948, following a November 29, 1947 resolution that divided Palestine into two Jewish and Arab states.