UN rights body adopts 5 anti-Israel resolutions, urges arms embargo

In a major diplomatic blow to Israel, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) has adopted five resolutions against Tel Aviv, urging an international ban on arms sales to the regime over its atrocities in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The resolutions were adopted Friday at the end of the UNHCR’s 37th session, which lasted for a month in Geneva, slamming the Israeli regime’s mistreatment of Palestinians and voicing support for the Palestinians’ cause against the regime’s occupation of their homeland.

One of the resolutions is called “Ensuring accountability and justice for all violations of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem (al-Quds).”

The document, which was passed by 27 to 4 votes and 15 abstentions, urged the world community to stop selling arms to the regime in Israel.

The resolution called upon “all states to promote compliance under international law” with regard to Israeli actions “by ensuring that their public authorities and private entities do not become involved in internationally unlawful conduct, inter alia the provision of arms to end users known or likely to use the arms in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian and/or human rights law.”

Another of the five resolutions calls for an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, which the regime seized from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War. Tel Aviv continues to occupy two-thirds of the Syrian territory ever since, in a move that has never been recognized by the international community.

The UN rights body also approved a resolution that called on Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 lines as well as one that urged the Tel Aviv regime to halt settlement activity.

The fifth document approved on Friday denounced Israel for human rights abuses against the Palestinians.

US gets angry, says losing ‘patience’

Furious over the resolutions, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has slammed the council as “foolish and unworthy of its name,” claiming it is biased against Israel.

She also warned that the US would continue to consider its options regarding membership of the UN panel, saying, “Our patience is not unlimited.”

“When that happens, as it did today, the Council fails to fulfill its duty to uphold human rights around the world. The United States continues to evaluate our membership in the Human Rights Council. Our patience is not unlimited,” Haley said.

The UK also spoke against what it called the council’s bias against Tel Aviv.

Britain opposed the resolutions on the Golan Heights and the one on accountability. It, however, voted in favor of the resolutions on human rights and Palestinian self-determination. The country also abstained on the resolution on settlements.

Under US President Donald Trump, the regime in Israel has stepped up its expansionist policies and crimes against Palestinians.

The regime has been further emboldened by a US decision to transfer its capital from Tel Aviv to the occupied city, in a major policy shift which drew global anger and protests late last year.

The city, which is designated as “occupied” under international law since the 1967 Arab War, is sought by Palestinians as the capital of their future state.

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