Ambassador Duong Chi Dung, head of Vietnam’s Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva, led the delegation to the session.

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Ambassador Duong Chi Dung, head of Vietnam’s Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva

The special session was held at the request of Palestine and the United Arab Emirates on May 15. More than 50 states supported this session, including 17 members of the UNHRC.

It took place amid more than 100 Palestinians killed and thousands of others injured in recent conflicts with the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip.

At the event, on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Pakistan submitted a draft resolution to the UNHRC to call for the urgent dispatch of an independent international commission of inquiry to the Gaza Strip.

Later, the 47 member states of the UNHRC discussed the draft resolution, which asks for a probe into violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in the context of the military assaults on large-scale civilian protests that began on March 30.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip took part in protests since March 30 to demand the right to return to their villages and towns they were forcibly displaced from in 1948, when the establishment of the State of Israel was declared.

The protests coincided with the US’s movement of its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and opening of this embassy on May 14.

Clashes between Palestinian protestors and Israel’s security force on May 14 killed 60 protestors and injured 2,500 others, making it the bloodiest day in the Israel-Palestine conflict since 2014.

Source: VNA