Kuwait Times

Published Date: October 22, 2008

UNITED NATIONS: Kuwait slammed Israeli practices in the occupied Palestinian territory and the Golan Heights. It said they are preventing the people from enjoying the minimum basic living standards and attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Addressing the General Assembly's Economic Committee, Kuwaiti diplomat Yacoub Ahmed Al-Nasrallah said it was with "great concern" that his country watched closely Israel's inhuman practices against the Palestinian people.

The Israeli military machine, he said, is preventing Palestinians and Arab residents of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights from enjoying the minimum basic living standards. This conduct is tantamount to flagrant defiance of international humanitarian law and human rights law, he added.

The erection of the separation wall, he noted, created a new pattern of internal emigration that resulted in more than 700 Palestinian families losing their livelihoods and agricultural land.

Israel's control of most water resources, he added, resulted in serious damage to water networks in the occupied Palestinian territory. He affirmed that occupation policies had contributed in the deterioration of the Palestinian economy, making it a "very difficult task" for the Palestinians to attain the Millennium Development Goals.

Arbitrary arrests, he noted, led to jailing 9,400 political prisoners, including 120 girls under the age of 18. In the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, he added, the building of Israeli settlements has led to oppressive policies against the Arab population there, in particular, levies for services that exceed those paid by Israeli settlers, in an attempt to drive them away from their land.

He said Kuwait "emphasizes its adherence to the Arab Peace Initiative which calls for a just and lasting peace, as well as Israel's unconditional withdrawal from all occupied Arab lands, including the occupied Syrian Golan Heights." --- KUNA