TEHRAN - UN Secretary General Antَnio Guterres recently proposed a plan to protect Palestinians and their rights in the occupied territories against the crimes of the Zionist regime. The plan appeared after the United Nations Security Council called on members to report on the developments in the occupied territories and to offer proposals to support the Palestinians.

The UN Secretary-General affirmed that over 170 Palestinians died in the Gaza Strip by Zionist snipers during the demonstrations this year in a report of the Zionist regime's crimes against the Palestinians. After the presentation, he argued that the success any plan for Palestinian rights required Tel Aviv and the Palestinians both to address the issue.

The provisions of Guterres’'s plan to support the Palestinians are as follows:

The United Nations presence in the occupied territories should be strengthened. In this regard, a group must be set up to monitor human rights issues, as well as political issues and assess the situation of the occupied territories.

Increasing humanitarian assistance to the residents of the occupied territories in vital.

Formation of a civilian monitoring body to report about activities in sensitive locations such as checkpoints and in areas close to Israeli settlements.

The deployment of a police force or military force by the United Nations in the Occupied Territories aimed at providing conditions protective of Palestinian civilians.

The Zionist regime has opposed the Guteres ideas in support of the Palestinians.  The Representative of the Zionist regime at the United Nations, Dennie Danone, said that the only support that the Palestinians needed was the support of their authorities. Danone stressed that the PA and Hamas only supported violence.

The fact is that the Zionist occupiers will not, in any circumstances, favor the measures to improve the status of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. Over the past decade, the Zionists have been using “blockades” and sanctions as a means to crush the Palestinians and force them to meet the demands of Tel Aviv.

The Zionists themselves know that the blockade and sanctions against the Palestinians, especially in the Gaza Strip, have hit Palestinian civilians hard. Under the umbrella of the sanctions and blockades, Gaza has become virtually unlivable, a disaster zone, according to many international human rights advocates. This is in part due to the lack of food and medicine in the Gaza Strip.
It should also be noted that the unemployment rate in the Gaza Strip has reached more than 80 percent. During all these years, following wars, boycotts and blockades many sources of income in the Gaza Strip, including livestock, farming and fishing, have been virtually eliminated. Disease has also been prevalent in the region following the sanctions and blockades.

The Israeli opposition to the UN plan and its rejection by Tel Aviv actually showed the depth of UN impotence in dealing with the grave circumstances in Gaza and the West Bank. The UN’s duty is actually to protect the rights of the oppressed and defenseless and to stand up to the oppressors, but this impotence is proving that no one can rely on the UN to do what is necessary to protect the human rights of Palestinians.

Undoubtedly, the UN has been acting more like a rubber stamp for U.S. and Zionist interests, and for the Saudis also, by refusing to enact proper measures to stem or halt the Zionist aggressions.