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The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain

UN DEMANDS END TO ISRAELI OCCUPATION

by our Arab Affairs correspondent

The UN General Assembly has passed a resolution demanding an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories while Arab countries send medical aid to Lebanon to treat the thousands injured by booby-trapped pagers. And Hezbollah vows to pay Israel back for the wave of terror attacks that’s killed dozens of their supporters and injured many more over the past few days.

Thousands of booby-trapped pagers and mobile phones have exploded in Beirut and other parts of Lebanon in attacks widely believed to have been carried out by Israel targeting Hezbollah, the Lebanese resistance movement. The pagers bore the brand of Gold Apollo electronics but the Taiwanese company say that the pagers were made by a Hungarian contractor, BAC Consulting KFT. The company however appears to be just a front.

Speaking to Israeli troops on Wednesday, Israeli De- fence Minister Yoav Gallant said “we are at the start of a new phase in the war — it requires courage, determination and perseverance”. He made no mention of the pagers and mobiles but praised the work of Israel’s army and security agencies, saying “the results are very impressive”.

Arab intelligence sources say that Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, planted explosives in 5,000 pagers that Hezbollah had ordered months before the explosions. They believe a code was simultaneously sent to 3,000 of the pagers, triggering the explosions and say it’s impossible for the available detection devices, even in global airports and countries, to detect this booby-trapped material that was embedded with specialised algorithms for this operation.

Meanwhile back in New York the Palestinian representative moved an emergency resolution at a special session of the United Nations on the issue of Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory. Riyad Mansour urged the General Assembly to respect the mandate of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which has unequivocally identified the legal consequences for Israel brought about by the occupation of Palestinian territory. “Justice delayed is justice denied,” Mansour said, calling for the establishment of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

“Palestinians want to live, not to survive. They want to be safe in their homes and want their children to go to school without fear. They want to be free in reality as they are in spirit,” he said moving the non-binding resolution that was opposed by the Americans and their lackeys but carried by 124 votes to 14 with 43 abstentions.

During the debate Fu Cong, China’s permanent representative at the global forum, urged Israel to heed the strong call of the international community and immediately end its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territories. Fu said decades of occupation and oppression have inflicted untold sufferings on the Palestinian people, and made the long-cherished dream of independent statehood ever more elusive. “Ending the occupation is not an option, but a legal obligation for Israel,” he said.

Independent statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people as a nation, the ambassador said. The prolonged illegal occupation has hindered the realization of self-determination of the Palestinian people and given Israel an exclusive veto over Palestine. “This is unacceptable” Fu said as he called on the international community to make greater efforts and demand that Israel implement the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly, cease its military operations in Gaza, and stop its illegal settlement activities in the West Bank. “China advocates the convening of a more broad-based and effective international peace conference to revitalize the political prospects of the two-State solution and to work out a timetable and a road-map for its implementation,” he said.