The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates called on the United Nations and its specialized agencies to send an international biological investigation team to the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories to inspect their laboratories.
Faraan: Omar Awadallah, Assistant Foreign Minister for United Nations and Specialized Agencies, told the Conference of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons, currently being held in Geneva, that since Israel controls the crossing and borders in the occupied territories, the Palestinian Authority is unable to verify what kind of weapons Israel is developing in these illegal settlements, which could pose a grave threat to the lives of the Palestinian people.
He said that Israel is the only party that refuses to establish a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, and it is the only party that has nuclear weapons and refuses to subject them to the supervision of the Atomic Energy Agency.
Awadallah accused Israel of using chemical weapons against the Palestinian people, and its settlers have used chemical material to burn Palestinian families in reference to burning the entire Dawabshe family, including an infant, in the West Bank village of Duma in July 2015, and the burning alive of the Abu Khdeir boy in Al-Quds in July 2014.
