07/02/2025
Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) concluded meeting at Headquarters United Nations in New York, and there will be a joint press encounter by members of the newly-elected Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP Bureau), as follows:
Ambassador Coly Seck, Permanent Representative of Senegal, Chair.
Ambassador Neville Melvin Gertze, Permanent Representative of Namibia, Vice-Chair.
Ambassador Jaime Hermida Castillo, Permanent Representative of Nicaragua, Vice-Chair
Ambassador Hari Prabowo, Deputy Permanent Representative of Indonesia, representing Ambassador Arrmanatha Christiawan Nasir, elected as Vice-Chair.
Ambassador Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, Permanent Representative of Cuba, Vice-Chair.
Ambassador Ahmad Faisal Muhamad, Permanent Representative of Malaysia, Vice-Chair and Rapporteur.
Ambassador Riyad Mansour, Permanent Observer of the Observer State of Palestine.
Committee mandated by the United Nations General Assembly in order to promote the rights of the Palestinian people, support the peace process and to mobilize assistance to the Palestinian people.
I want to salute this Committee for its work. At its essence, the exercise of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people is about the right of Palestinians to simply live as human beings in their own land.
We have seen the realization of those rights steadily slip farther out of reach. We have seen a chilling, systematic dehumanization and demonization of an entire people. Of course, nothing justifies the horrific Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023. And nothing justifies what we have seen unfold in Gaza over the last many months.
We all know too well the catalogue of destruction and unspeakable horrors. The nearly 50,000 people — 70 per cent of them women and children — who have been reported killed.
Now, I call on Member States, donors, and the international community to fully fund humanitarian operations and meet urgent needs. And I once again urge Member States to support the essential work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).