Daily calls for swift halt to Zionists' atrocities in West Bank

Tehran, Nov 2, IRNA - 'Kayhan International' on Sunday condemning the Zionist regime's brutalities in the West Bank urged the international community and the Security Council (SC) to swiftly help stop the atrocities in Occupied Palestine. The English-language daily also called on the international community and the SC to recognize the right to Palestinian self-determination, to give their movement additional tools in moving toward a truly just resolution, and give fresh hope to all the people of Palestine who deserve to live in freedom, peace, security and democracy. Palestinian-Israeli peace plan looks far less feasible these days. Friday's clashes over the closure of Al Aqsa Mosque was the latest flashpoint in occupied East al-Quds, as Palestinian demonstrators took to the streets, with many calling for a new intifada (uprising) against the Zionist regime of Israel, noted the paper in its Viewpoint column. Al Aqsa and adjacent neighborhoods have seen months of violence, and the mosque compound has been a rallying point for Palestinian resistance to Zionist attempts to take control of it. The clashes prompted Israel to order a rare closure of the mosque compound, sacred to both Muslims and Jews, but the area reopened on Friday. Shortly afterwards, Palestinian youths outside the Old City threw stones at Israeli security forces. The Israelis responded with live fire and rubber bullets and wounded around a dozen people. As it stands, the Zionist regime has a policy of keeping the Palestinians stateless, which means, the oppressed people have no state to back their rights; the have no real title to their property, no rights over their land, water or air, nor really even control of their own bodies, underscored the paper. Likewise, the usurper regime is dedicated to the project of stealing Palestinian lands, mosques and resources. They are building illegal settlement units, which are solely Zionist and racist in character, excluding the native Palestinians from dwellings built on their own territory, it criticized. The intended end game is that once a majority of the population in occupied neighborhoods is Israeli, an incident like the one that just took place on Friday will be used as a pretext to simply chase all the Palestinians out and then lock them out of their homes, their mosques and their own country, it pointed out. As always, the Friday protests will be used by the Zionist regime to demonize all Palestinians and to justify collective punishment, and as a pretext to take further property and rights away from them. The Western-backed Zionist regime has been doing just that for decades - under the watchful eyes of the international community. Sadly, there is no reason to assume that this time it will be any different: That the United Nations will do something about it. Quite the opposite, the Zionist regime has been able to violate Palestinian rights because the UN and its Security Council have been and still are unable to stop pro-Israel parties such as the United States and the European Union from vetoing resolutions critical to Israel. Another case could be Egypt’s decision to build a "buffer zone” along its border with the Gaza Strip, designed to further isolate the besieged city. The UN SC knows that the "no-go area” goes against international law and Palestinians’ rights, but it is doing nothing about it – as always. In light of the above, it is high time for the international community to make right decisions for the Palestinians: Change the official body of the UNSC and make it more democratic by adding new members and taking out the veto powers. It is also up to the UN to tell veto-yielding powers to vote for justice, and force Egypt to stop the construction of its illegal buffer zone with Gaza, concluded the paper./end