Retno Marsudi Pledges to Raise Palestine Issues at UN Human Rights Council

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi promised to raise issues surrounding Palestine at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) after the country was elected as a member for the period 2024-2026 along with 15 other countries on October 10, 2023.

“We will continue to bring up the Palestinian issue,” Retno said on Wednesday, Dec. 27, in response to journalists' questions about Indonesia's commitment as a member of the Council starting next year.

She emphasized that the Palestinian issue is highly relevant. She also highlighted the issue of human rights violations that continue to occur against the Palestinians during the series of events commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which began on December 11, 2023, in Geneva, Switzerland.

On the same occasion, Retno conveyed the mandate from the joint summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Arab League on November 11, 2023, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to push for international action to resolve the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Palestine. 

For nearly two months, Retno and her counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and Nigeria visited various countries to discuss efforts to end the Israeli violence in Gaza.

The countries visited included the four permanent members of the UN Security Council, namely China, Russia, the UK, and France. The visit to the United States, Retno added, was still being explored. 

Retno explained that they also met with humanitarian organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, which acknowledged the dire situation in Gaza.

“Almost all of them said that they had never seen such a bad situation in a humanitarian crisis anywhere else so far,” Retno Marsudi said.

The relentless Israeli attack on Gaza, which has been ongoing since October 7, 2023, has killed at least 20,674 people to date, including 8,200 children and 6,200 women, according to Gaza health authorities. Another 7,000 people are missing.

NABIILA AZZAHRA A.

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