British Officer to Address UN Urgent Session

British Officer to Address UN Urgent Session After Field Visit to Gaza Front Line

Col. Richard Kemp now at UN Human Rights Council in Geneva

GENEVA, May 18, 2018 -- The former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, coming from a field visit and report at the Gaza front line, is about to testify before the emergency UN session taking place today at the 47-nation Human Rights Council in Geneva. See embargoed speech below.

Col. Richard Kemp has spent most his life fighting terrorism and insurgency, commanding British troops on the front line of some of the world's toughest hotspots, including Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans and Northern Ireland. He is now a writer, prolific journalist, and media commentator.

His latest op-ed appeared this week in the Daily Telegraph: Hamas are using their own people as expendable tools.

UNHRC URGENT SESSIONS
Today's special session is the council's 8th urgent meeting on Israel. Since its creation in 2006, the Council has convened 22 urgent sessions criticizing countries:
8 on Israel
5 on Syria
2 on Myanmar
1 on Central African Republic
1 on Libya
1 on Cote d’Ivoire
1 on DR Congo
1 on Sudan
1 on Burundi
1 on South Sudan
0 on 170 other countries, including China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, Yemen, Zimbabwe
For more information, click here. For a copy of the draft resolution creating a commission of inquiry, click here.
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EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY AT 15:00 CET
United Nations Watch
Oral Statement to Human Rights Council
28th Special Session, 18 May 2018

Delivered by Colonel Richard Kemp
Thank you, Mr. President.
I have the honour to take the floor on behalf of United Nations Watch.
I commanded British troops in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Balkans and Northern Ireland, and served with NATO and the United Nations. I have come straight from the Gaza front line to share my assessment.
Based on what I observed, I can say that everything we just heard here is a complete distortion of the truth.

The truth is that Hamas, a terrorist organization that seeks the destruction of Israel and murder of Jews everywhere, deliberately caused over 60 of its own people to get killed.
They sent thousands of civilians to the front line — as human shields for terrorists trying to break through the border.
Hamas’s goal, in their own words, was “blood… in the path of Jihad.”

I ask every country in this Council: You have all been telling us that Israel should have reacted differently. But how would you respond if a Jihadist terror group sent thousands to flood your borders, and gunmen to massacre your communities?

Your failure to admit that Hamas is responsible for every drop of blood spilt on the Gaza border encourages their violence and use of human shields. It makes you complicit in further bloodshed.

If Israel had allowed these mobs to break through the fence, the IDF would then have been forced to defend their own civilians from slaughter and many more Palestinians would have been killed.

Israel’s actions therefore saved lives of Gazans; and if this Council really cared about human rights, it should commend the Israel Defence Force for that, not condemn them on the basis of lies.
Thank you, Mr. President.

MORE ON THE URGENT SESSION

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