KUWAIT, Kuwait's Ambassador in The Hague Ali Al-Dhafairi expressed Thursday the country's appreciation to the extraordinary efforts taken by the ICJ to other hearings to proceed smoothly in light of the great number of participants.
In a speech before the court Hague-based court, Al-Dhafairi said the current advisory proceedings are of extreme importance to the Palestinian people, Kuwait, the international legal order and the international community as a whole.
"Kuwait has always advocated that peace fosters the observance of law and vice versa. Adherence to the UN Charter is an indispensable pre-requisite for the definitive establishment of international peace," he told the court.
"Indeed, peaceful relations are founded on accepted truth and other such peaceful relations among states are based on the provisions of the UN Charter," he noted.
These include notably the principle of the peace settlement of disputes, he added.
He went to say that these rules "apply to all states. Respect for these fundamental rules contribute to the consolidation of international peace".
"The conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis - hereafter referring to it as the occupying power - is an illegal occupation conflict involving on one side, and the occupying power equipped with all military means and the other side -- an occupied nation - without defensive capabilities facing daily expulsion, human rights violations and all sufferings associated with any occupation situation," the Kuwaiti ambassador elaborated.
Over the past decades, the situation between the Palestinians and occupying power has been extremely tense resulting in a series of human rights law and humanitarian law violations committed by the latter, he stated.
Various governmental and non-governmental organizations have documented these violations by publishing comprehensive reports, he stressed.
He noted that the occupying power has waged an illegitimate war on the Palestinians in Gaza characterized by numerous international law violations.
"The ongoing flagrant violations have been highlighted in a series of statements issued among others by the UN Secretary General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the special procedures of the UN human rights council," he told the court.
He referred that the violence in Gaza "is a result of 75 years of illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories and it must stop". Al-Dhafairi quoted the late Amir of the Sate of Kuwait His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah who summarized the situation in 2018 as saying that "Why do we ignore and do not implement the UN Security Council Resolutions. Why - we ask the whole world - the Palestinian people's plight continues. Why the international community incapable of resolving this cause. Why that Israel always escape punishment". (more) hm