NEY YORK (WAFA) – Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, Ambassador Riyad Mansour, sent Tuesday identical letter to the UN Secretary-General, President of the Security Council (Russian Federation) and President of the General Assembly on the critical situation of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons and on Israel's colonial settlement campaign and aggressive actions and measures against the Palestinian people.

Mansour said in the letter: “Israeli continues to carry out grave violations of international law, ranging from the killing and injury of Palestinian civilians by means of excessive force.”

“Military raids and mass arrests and detention, including of children; illegal settlement construction and expansion; demolition of Palestinian homes and properties, including those belonging to Bedouin communities; extrajudicial executions; and incessant provocations and incitement by occupying forces against Palestinian people and their holy places … have all continued,” said Mansour.

“As was mentioned in our letter of 5 June, more than one hundred detainees and prisoners are participating in a hunger strike in peaceful protest of their capitivity and the widespread abuses employed against them by the occupying Power and many of them, who have been on a hunger strike for more than 55 days, are in a serious and critical condition.”

“Serious efforts must be made by the international community to compel Israel to comply with international law, including humanitarian law, specifically Article 76 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, which clearly defines the rights of protected persons faced with detention by an occupying Power.”

“The Israeli occupying forces have continued to carry out missile air strikes and artillery bombardment of civilian areas in the Gaza Strip in grave violation of international law.”

Source: Palestine News & Information Agency - WAFA