gelatik
12.05.02, 13:48
Palestinian Children Denounce Israeli Occupation, UN Adopts Action Plan
UNITED NATIONS, May - A delegation of Palestinian teenagers denounced Israel's
occupation and issued a message of tolerance and defiance, as Friday night UN
member states unanimously adopted a 21-point plan of action for the coming
decade, to improve the health and education of children worldwide, news
agencies reported.
The four young people held up blackened schoolbags and books destroyed in an
Israeli land mine explosion that killed five children on their way to school
and told stories of the hardships and humiliations they suffered at the hands
of Israeli occupation army, according to news agencies.
The Palestinian teens said the occupation, specifically the latest Israeli
aggression that began in March, deprived Palestinian children of their basic
rights.
"We are seeing Palestinian children killed, abused, destroyed as children,"
said Ahmad al-Kheri, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy. "They are shot
everywhere ... We are seeing them destroyed by the Israeli soldiers in our
country."
Jenin Zaal Abu Ruqti, a 15-year-old girl from Ramallah, said the Palestinian
delegation hoped for peace and saw Israeli children as allies in the effort to
end the fighting.
"We love everybody. We are children. We don't hate anybody," she said. "We came
here with a voice of peace from all the Palestinian children."
Al-Kheri, however, defended the Palestinian resistance saying that bombing
attacks against Israelis were acts of self-defense.
"We are not for killing innocent people ... but when you are talking about
somebody who has his land occupied, who has his friends being killed and abused
every day ... he has the right to defend himself," al-Kheri said. "If he hasn't
any other way to defend himself but that, he'll use it."
Palestinians and representatives of other Islamic nations are pressing for a
specific mention of the plight of Palestinian children in the U.N. children's
summit's final declaration, an effort denounced by Israel and the U.S.
"They're trying to hijack (the final document) in their narrow political
interest and thus deprive the world of action on a nonpolitical important
issue," said Ariel Milo, a spokesman for Israel's U.N. mission.
But the Palestinian children at the conference, all of whom participated in a
Children's Forum held just before the U.N. summit, blamed Israel for depriving
them of their rights.
"The main thing is to end occupation because it violates all Palestinian
children's rights," said Reem Hassan, a 16-year-old girl.
Abdul Rahman, a 15-year-old boy from Gaza, said Palestinian children are fed up
with adults on both sides.
"We are disappointed with some of the adults ... because they don't do anything
to end the problem," he said. "And some of the adults are the cause of the
problem."
Meanwhile, participants UN member states unanimously adopted a 21-point plan of
action for the coming decade to improve life conditions for children worldwide,
reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"I am enormously proud and pleased at what has been accomplished this week,"
said Carol Bellamy, director of the UN Children's Fund UNICEF at the close of a
three-day special session of the UN General Assembly.
"If leaders keep the promises they have made, we can bring about enormous
positive change in the world in less than a generation."
The plan was part of a 24-page document, "A World Fit For Children", focusing
on four priorities: promoting healthy lives; quality education for all;
protecting children from abuse, exploitation and violence; and combating
HIV/AIDS.
The special session was called to assess progress towards 10-year targets that
were adopted at the first world summit on children in 1990, many of which
remained unmet.
The new plan set targets for 2010, notably to reduce by at least one third the
mortality rates of infants and children under five, and of mothers after
childbirth.
Even so, Britain's minister for children and young people, John Denham, told
the Assembly these were too timid to ensure the success of meeting the UN's
Millennium goals of slashing child mortality by two-thirds by 2015 and maternal
mortality by three-quarters.
Click here for the main points of the UN’s 21-point plan of action adopted to
help free children from the threats of poverty, hunger, disease and war over
the coming decade.
