Translated by Tamara Barakat

The Commission on the Status of Women adopted in its 60^th session that was held at the UN Headquarters in New York on Thursday a draft resolution on the situation of and assistance to Palestinian women.

Twenty countries voted in favor of the draft resolution, two countries (US and Israel) rejected it, and eleven countries preferred to abstain (Japan, Albania, the Republic of Korea, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Finland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, and Liechtenstein), noting that the Commission has forty-five member states.

The resolution emphasized that the Israeli occupation remains the main impediment to the development and self-independence of women and their participation in the development of their society.

It urged the international community to support Palestinian women, to provide them with the services they urgently needed to ameliorate the humanitarian crisis Palestinian women and their families suffer from, and to help in the reconstruction of the relevant Palestinian organizations.

The resolution also calls on donor countries to meet the pledges they made at the Cairo Conference for the Reconstruction of the Gaza Strip in October 2014.

The commission also specifically demanded Israel to respect international humanitarian law and human rights in order to protect the human rights of Palestinian women and their families.

Moreover, it urged the international community to continue placing special attention on the protection of the human rights of Palestinian women and girls, and to increase the measures they take to improve the difficult conditions Palestinian women and their families suffer from under Israeli occupation.

(WAFA)