Ahead of the emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, the US calls on members to “strongly condemn” the Hamas attack.
Ahead of the emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council, scheduled to take place behind closed doors on Sunday evening to discuss the situation in the Middle East, the US is calling on all members of the Middle East to oppose the Hamas offensive against Israel. “We hope that all members of the Council will condemn in the strongest possible terms what happened in Israel, these heinous terrorist attacks,” US Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood told the press.
He noted that this was not a matter of a “declaration” from the Council at this stage. Diplomatic sources said council members are considering issuing a joint statement, but discussions are proving difficult.
Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun said China “supports” such a statement. “We condemn all attacks on civilians,” he said, while stressing the need for a return to a peace process to achieve a two-state solution.
Israel officially declared war on Hamas on Sunday after the Palestinian Islamist movement’s unprecedented offensive launched from the Gaza Strip the day before, bringing the overall death toll to more than a thousand.
Israel has “one and only one demand” to the UN Security Council, said Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan: “Hamas’ war crimes must be clearly condemned.”
“Unfortunately, for some media and politicians, the story only begins when Israelis are killed,” responded Palestinian Ambassador Ryiad Mansour, who represents the Palestinian Authority and not Hamas. “We will never accept rhetoric that denigrates our humanity and denies our rights, rhetoric that ignores the occupation of our land and the oppression of our people,” he added richly: “It is time to tell Israel its “There is a path to peace in which neither Palestinians nor Israelis are killed.”
The Security Council, which is regularly divided on the issue, condemned Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories last January, saying they threatened the two-state solution. This was the Council’s first decision on the issue in six years. In December 2016, the Council called on Israel to stop colonization in the Palestinian territories for the first time since 1979.