New York, 18 September 2024 (dpa/MIA) – The Palestinians have appealed to the United Nations General Assembly to vote for a resolution calling for Israel's withdrawal from occupied territories.

"Please stand on the right side of history, with international law, with freedom, with peace. The alternative is what you witness every day on your TV screens and what the Palestinian people are enduring in their flesh," the Palestinian representative to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, said in New York.

The Palestinian resolution is intended to increase pressure on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories through the UN General Assembly.

A number of states had requested the session of the largest UN body, which began on Tuesday. The draft resolution aims to enforce an advisory opinion of the top UN court on the Middle East conflict, with a vote expected on Wednesday.

The Israeli ambassador Danny Danon sharply criticized the Palestinian initiative.

Following the devastating terrorist attack by the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement on October 7 last year, he said that the international community had not condemned the terror in any resolution.

"Instead, we gather here to watch the Palestinians' UN circus - a circus where evil is righteous, war is peace, murder is justified and terror is applauded," said the ambassador.

"How dare you continue this tradition of passing one-sided resolutions against Israel, without even posing to consider what the Israeli people have endured."

The resolution states that Israel must end its unlawful presence in occupied Palestinian territory within 12 months. Traditionally, there is a large majority at the United Nations for Palestinian issues and against Israeli ones.

In the event that the draft resolution is adopted, it is not legally binding under international law.

The text refers to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, which determined in an advisory opinion in July that the occupation of the Palestinian Territories was illegal and had to be ended as soon as possible. Israel had ignored this.

Israel took control of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem in the Six-Day War of 1967. The Palestinians claim these areas for a state of their own, which is meant to exist alongside Israel and which most countries worldwide, including Germany, still support today.

In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip but continues to control the borders by land, sea, and air.

Photo: archive