The Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, has welcomed the Resolution adopted yesterday by the Ninth Special Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, condemning Israel for grave human rights violations in Gaza. The OIC Secretary General called for urgent implementation by the United Nations Secretary General and UN High Commissioner of Human Rights of stipulations of the resolution related to dispatching an urgent independent international fact-finding mission to investigate all Israeli violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and investigating the latest targeting of UNRWA facilities in Gaza, including schools, that resulted in the killing of tens of Palestinian civilians, including women and children. In the resolution, which was adopted by a vote of 33 to 1 with 13 abstentions, the Council also called for the immediate cessation of Israeli military attacks throughout the Palestinian Occupied Territory; demanded Israel to immediately withdraw its military forces from the occupied Gaza Strip; called upon Israel, the occupying power, to end its occupation to all Palestinian lands occupied since 1967, and to respect its commitment within the peace process towards the establishment of the independent sovereign Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital. The resolution demanded Israel to stop targeting civilians and medical facilities and staff as well as the systematic destruction of cultural heritage and lift the siege and open all borders. Secretary General Ihsanoglu praised the leading role of the OIC Group at the Human Rights Council in Geneva in achieving this important result, which, he emphasized, should pave the way for further action by the UN Security Council, General Assembly and Human Rights Council, to make the perpetrators of grave human rights abuses and war crimes committed in Gaza to be accountable in front of international justice mechanisms. --More
