UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe The UN Security Council meets on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question.
Published January 24, 2024
Top diplomats debated the deepening crisis in the Gaza Strip and the whole Middle East in the UN Security Council on Tuesday against the backdrop of Israel’s unrelenting military operation, mounting death toll and escalating global calls for an immediate ceasefire. The UN Secretary-General told ambassadors and foreign ministers that any refusal to accept a two-State solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict “must be firmly rejected”, as the Council is poised to reconvene on Wednesday afternoon to hear more from the wider UN membership.
There are still dozens of countries remaining who want to speak in this high stakes open debate. All the Council members have already had their say, along with many of the big regional players. Here are the main points from Tuesday:
HIGHLIGHTS SO FAR
- Israel’s “clear and repeated rejection” of the two-State solution “is unacceptable”, said UN Secretary-General António Guterres, adding that “this refusal, and the denial of the right to statehood to the Palestinian people, would indefinitely prolong a conflict that has become a major threat to global peace and security.”
- Council members roundly called for the two-State solution to be realized and for an end to the war, with many calling for an immediate ceasefire to end the suffering of Palestinians and allow the aid they urgently need to be delivered unhindered
- Many speakers from the wider UN membership echoed those calls
- “Stop this massacre,” said the Deputy Prime Minister of Jordan
- “We are running out of time. There are two choices: a spreading fire or a ceasefire,” said the Foreign Affairs Minister for the Observer State of Palestine
- Israel’s Ambassador said if the Council continues to provide aid to Gaza without considering the Iranian threat, the world faces “a very dark future”
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SOURCE: www.news.un.org
RELATED: Hamas bigwig rejects 2-state solution, says Oct. 7 ‘revived dream to free Palestine’
Qatar-based billionaire Khaled Mashaal remains indifferent to Gaza’s destruction, insists terror group will not relinquish its goals, says recognition of Israel is a red line
Khaled Mashaal, member of Hamas’s political bureau, speaks to Kuwaiti podcaster Ammar Taqi on January 16, 2024 (Video screenshot)
Published January 23, 2024
Senior Hamas official Khaled Mashaal has dismissed the possibility of a two-state solution and said that his terror group’s devastating October 7 assault on Israel proved that liberating Palestine “from the river to the sea” is a realistic idea.
In an interview with Kuwaiti podcaster Ammar Taki last week, Mashaal, a former top leader of the terror group, said that there is “nearly a consensus” among Palestinians that they will not give up their rights to the land stretching “from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea” — that is, the West Bank, Gaza and all of Israel.
Mashaal noted that the slogan is also regularly chanted at rallies by “American students and in European capitals,” and said that the October 7 onslaught has “revived that dream.”
The Hamas bigwig categorically rejected the option of a political settlement with Israel and a two-state solution to the conflict, on the grounds that it would imply recognizing the legitimacy of the State of Israel, an “unacceptable” red line for the terror movement.
He further claimed that while Hamas has agreed to a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in a bid to “establish common ground” in the context of reconciliation dialogue with other Palestinian factions over the years — most notably its historic rival Fatah — it will not relinquish its ambition to liberate the entirety of historic “Palestine,” including the territory of the State of Israel.
War broke out with Hamas’s October 7 onslaught into southern Israel, when terrorists overran military bases, communities and a music festival, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, amid widespread scenes of horrific abuse. The terrorists also took 253 hostages.
Mashaal said in the interview that being in power in Gaza over the past 17 years had provided Hamas with “political and administrative cover” to build its terror infrastructure undisturbed by the PA or Israel, and manufacture weapons, dig tunnels, and train its members.
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SOURCE: www.timesofisrael.com
RELATED: Netanyahu again rejects Palestinian sovereignty amid fresh US push for two-state solution
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads the weekly cabinet meeting at the Defence Ministry in Tel Aviv on January 7.
Published January 22, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday rejected calls for Palestinian sovereignty following talks with US President Joe Biden about Gaza’s future, suggesting Israel’s security needs would be incompatible with Palestinian statehood.
“I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of Jordan – and this is contrary to a Palestinian state,” Netanyahu said in a post on X
The Israeli leader did not provide any other details in his one-line post in Hebrew. The territory west of Jordan encompasses Israel, the occupied West Bank, and Hamas-run Gaza, where Israel is battling the militant group following the October 7 attacks.
Biden and his top officials — including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who visited Israel and the region last week — have said the creation of a Palestinian state with guarantees for Israel’s security is the only way to finally bring peace and stability to the Middle East.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Sunday called opposition to a two-state solution “unacceptable.”
“The refusal to accept the two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians, and the denial of the right to statehood for the Palestinian people, are unacceptable,” Guterres posted on X.
Amid reports the US, Egypt and Qatar want Israel to join a new phase of talks with Hamas, Netanyahu this weekend also publicly rejected what he characterized as Hamas’ terms for releasing more Israeli hostages from Gaza: an end of the war, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Palestinian enclave, and the release of more Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
“If we agree to this – our soldiers fell in vain. If we agree to this – we will not be able to guarantee the security of our citizens,” Netanyahu said Sunday.
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SOURCE: www.edition.cnn.com
