Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas demanded an end to Israeli occupation today, telling the United Nations that "the hour of independence for Palestine has arrived."
"There is an occupation that must end now. There is a people that must be freed immediately. The hour of independence of the state of Palestine has arrived," Abbas said in an address to the UN General Assembly in New York.
Abbas, however, did not set a deadline for fast-tracking to Palestinian statehood, after aides suggested they were eyeing 2017 as the year for Palestine to be born.
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The Palestinian leader also vowed to seek war crimes prosecutions against Israel over the 50-day war in Gaza that killed 2,140 Palestinians, mostly civilians and left the enclave in ruins.
Describing Israeli attacks on Gaza as a "genocidal crime," Abbas vowed, "We will not forget and we will not forgive, and we will not allow war criminals to escape punishment."
The war in Gaza was "a series of absolute war crimes carried out before the eyes and ears of the entire world," he said, citing the unprecedented destruction left behind and the deaths of children.
More than 460 children were killed in the violence, according to UNICEF, including in the Israeli shelling of UN-run shelters that Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has described as a violation of international humanitarian law.
The Palestinians have threatened to join the Hague-based International Criminal Court to allow legal action to be taken against Israel, but Abbas did not specify in his address whether he would resort to the ICC.
In 2012, the Palestinians won the status of observer state in the United Nations, which gives them the ability to become a party to the ICC, where they could sue Israeli officials over war crimes.
The United Nations agreed in July to open an investigation of alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza, led by Canadian international law expert William Schabas.
Abbas spoke after rival Palestinian factions reached a unity deal that will pave the way for the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza and for a massive internationally-funded reconstruction effort to begin.
