The Deputy Foreign Minister and Permanent Representative of Syria to the United Nations, Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari, considered the existence of Israel to be a clear indication of the Security Council's failure to fulfill its responsibilities and to end its occupation of lands, which is the main factor for the continued tension and conflicts in the region.
In a statement he presented to the Security Council during today's session on the situation in the Middle East, as reported by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), he emphasized that despite the passage of over five decades since the Israeli occupation of Arab territories, which represents a threat to the security and stability of the region and to international peace and security, this occupation remains in place today. This is a clear indication of the Security Council's failure to fulfill its responsibilities and end the occupation, which is a primary factor in the continued tension and disputes in the region.
Al-Jaafari spoke about the Security Council's failure to hold Israeli authorities accountable for their aggressive actions and violations of international law and the UN Charter, as well as their systematic criminal practices against our people in the occupied Arab territories, due to the protection and care provided by some Western permanent members of the Security Council, primarily the United States, which has abandoned its membership duties and responsibilities in upholding the principles of the Charter and maintaining international peace and security, converting its membership into a platform for protecting the Israeli occupation, prolonging it, and ensuring that its representatives escape any accountability or punishment for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and serious human rights violations they commit.
Al-Jaafari pointed to the unprecedented bias of the previous U.S. administration under President Donald Trump towards the Israeli occupation and its schemes, adopting provocative unilateral actions aimed at changing the political and legal reality of the occupied Arab territories. However, these American attempts have been met with clear and strong condemnation from Syria along with the overwhelming majority of member states that affirmed that Trump's declaration regarding the occupied Syrian Golan and Jerusalem is merely unilateral acts by a party that lacks the authority, political, legal, or moral competence to decide the fates of the world's peoples or to act on lands that are an integral part of the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic and the occupied Palestine.
Al-Jaafari highlighted the disregard by Israeli authorities for international law and decisions of international legitimacy, as they continue to intensify their attacks on Syrian territories in blatant violation of Security Council resolution 350 of 1974 regarding the disengagement of forces. He pointed out that recent days have witnessed an increase in the pace of Israeli attacks on Syria, the most recent of which occurred last Friday, in which the Israeli entity launched a new aggression on the outskirts of Hama, resulting in the martyrdom of a family consisting of a father, a mother, and two children, and injured four other family members, alongside the destruction of a number of houses belonging to innocent civilians.
Al-Jaafari explained that this aggression is a continuation of Israeli attacks, which have numbered over fifty in less than a year, resulting in the martyrdom of a large number of civilians and the destruction of their properties. Concurrently, the occupying authorities continued to practice state terrorism and intensified their systematic and severe violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in the occupied Syrian Golan since 1967, in an attempt to consolidate their control over it. This is evidenced by crimes of settlement, racial discrimination, arbitrary detention, torture, forcible displacement, demographic alteration, and theft of the Golan's natural resources, along with attempts to impose "their nationality" through threats and extortion, including pressure on Golan students studying in Europe who come to spend their vacations with their families to compel them to accept Israeli citizenship or face the threat of being prevented from traveling to complete their studies in Europe.
In this context, Al-Jaafari indicated that the Israeli occupation is currently expanding what is called the "Trump Settlement" established on the land of the village of Qunaitra in the occupied Syrian Golan, and preparations have been underway since the beginning of last month to transfer dozens of Israeli settlers to the new settlement as part of a policy of settlement expansion aimed at erasing the identity of the occupied Syrian Golan. Additionally, the Israeli occupation has seized lands and properties of our people in the Golan to establish large wind turbines on them, a plan that our people under occupation have resisted through widespread popular movement, which was violently suppressed by the occupying forces, resulting in injuries and arrests.
Al-Jaafari emphasized that the continued arbitrary arrests by the Israeli occupation of our people in the occupied Syrian Golan represent an integral part of the series of crimes and human rights violations committed over the more than five decades of its occupation. He reiterated Syria's rejection of the unjust and arbitrary ruling by the Israeli occupation authorities on June 10 of last year, sentencing Nahla Al-Maqd, a daughter of the town of Majdal Shams in the Golan, to three years in prison and a hefty financial fine. Subsequently, the occupation authorities later replaced the prison sentence with hard labor, where the occupation forces detained Ms. Maqd and transferred her to the place of hard labor.
Al-Jaafari explained that in August, Ms. Maqd was forcibly transferred to a location that effectively serves as a prison for her within occupied Palestine, far from her land in the occupied Syrian Golan, aimed at distancing her from her homeland and family. She has been subjected to arbitrary and repressive practices by the Israeli occupation authorities to exert pressure on her, break her will, and subjugate her to the force of occupation, just as was the case with her brother, the freed prisoner Sadiq Al-Maqd, who was detained by the Israeli occupation authorities in their dark prisons for thirty years.
He noted that on the 12th of this month, Syria directed a letter to the UN Secretary-General requesting his assistance in freeing Ms. Nahla Al-Maqd and enabling her return to her family and land in the village of Majdal Shams in the occupied Syrian Golan, as well as a similar letter to the UN Special Envoy for the Middle East, Tor Wennesland, while looking forward to receiving their responses.
Al-Jaafari renewed Syria's demand to the UN Security Council for urgent action to ensure the implementation of resolution 497 of 1981 and to compel the occupying entity to stop its settlement practices and repressive measures against our people in the occupied Syrian Golan and withdraw from the entire occupied Golan up to the line of June 4, 1967. He also called on the international community to pressure "Israel" as the occupying power to immediately and without delay open and operate the Quneitra crossing, which represents the lifeline connecting our people in the occupied Syrian Golan to their country Syria and the breathing space they rely on.
Al-Jaafari stated that Syria has repeatedly expressed its strong protest against the biased and non-objective approach taken by the previous UN envoy to the Middle East, Nikolai Mladenov, in his periodic briefings to the Security Council, purposely ignoring the conditions in the occupied Syrian Golan and the developments therein amid the continuous aggressive and criminal practices of the Israeli occupation authorities and the unlawful decisions issued by the U.S. administration. He demanded that the new envoy Wennesland rectify his predecessor's mistakes, correct the course, and adhere in a neutral, professional, and transparent manner to the mandate entrusted to him, with the situation in the occupied Syrian Golan and the escalating Israeli practices against our people in the Golan being a priority in his mandate and efforts.
Al-Jaafari reaffirmed Syria's position that the stability of the region and the maintenance of the credibility of the United Nations necessitate taking measures to ensure the implementation of relevant international resolutions to end the Israeli occupation of the occupied Arab territories, including the Syrian Golan, in accordance with relevant UN resolutions, especially resolutions 242, 338, 497, and 2334. He stressed that the Golan is an integral part of its territories and that Syria will work to restore it fully by all means guaranteed by international law and custom, considering it an eternal right that does not expire over time.
Al-Jaafari emphasized Syria's support for the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the establishment of their independent state on their entire national territory, with Jerusalem as its capital, ensuring the right of refugees to return to their homes in accordance with resolution 194 of 1948, affirming that any actions or deals that do not comply with the relevant UN resolutions and do not safeguard the established Palestinian rights are categorically rejected, both in form and content, and are inherently unviable. He reiterated Syria's demand for granting the State of Palestine full membership in the United Nations.
