The UN Security Council emergency meeting to discuss Israel-Palestine recent conflicts ended with no results as members only expressed concerns about the situation in Gaza.
It was on this Monday that the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting to address the grave situation in Gaza and yet it produced no results whatsoever. The meeting, which lasted for two hours, was held after three days of Israel’s bloody airstrikes against civilian areas in the Gaza Strip and also after the two sides agreed to declare a ceasefire.
The meeting started with the remarks of Tor Wennesland, the UN Special Coordinator for the West Asia Peace Process, saying that “the United Nations is still in close contact with all parties to consolidate the Gaza ceasefire.” Wennesland presented a report on the current situation of the occupied Palestinian territories and thanked various countries for their assistance to establish this ceasefire, including Egypt and Qatar.
He then referred to the truce between the Israeli military and the Islamic Jihad group and asserted that “the ceasefire in Gaza is still fragile and any resumption of conflicts will only have devastating consequences for the parties and make any political progress impossible.”
This Norwegian diplomat also rebuked Israel for the status quo in the Gaza Strip, saying that “Israeli authorities have increased their military operations in the West Bank, especially in the Jenin camp,” and that “he complete closure of the crossings of the Gaza Strip by Israel for six days caused a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”
Siding with Israel
But at the same time, Wennesland also supported Israel and its bloody airstrikes against Palestinians by saying that he “fully recognizes the legitimate security concerns of Israel.”
Israel claims that the airstrikes were carried out due to security concerns from Palestine and especially the Islamic Jihad group and that the attacks were aimed at targeting the members of this Palestinian organization.
However, it is good to mention here that as a result of three days of heavy air bombardments against non-military areas in Gaza, 44 Palestinian civilians, including 16 children, were killed and at least 350 others were wounded.
What did reps of both parties say?
“Israel always claims the right to defend itself, even when it attacks Palestinian civilians, and what it calls the right to security and defense has become a license to justify oppression against a nation and kill Palestinian men, women, and children.” Riyad Mansour, the representative of Palestine in the United Nations said at the UNSC meeting Monday. He also noted that “two issues in Israel’s policy will never change; the bombing of Gaza and the expansion of settlements.”
Referring to the high death toll as a result of Israel’s recent attacks, Mansour rebuked the international community for not doing anything to stop Israel’s killing of Palestinians; “when is the world going to show Israel that it cannot continue killing innocent civilians anymore?” he asked the members present in the meeting.
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s representative to the United Nations, also read a statement at the meeting on Monday evening. He repeated what the Israeli officials already stated and said that what Israel did was due to security concerns.
The irony, however, was when Erdan noted that the Israeli army took all measures to reduce civilian casualties. This is while as mentioned above, the three-day attacks took the lives of dozens of Palestinian civilians, marking one of the deadliest rounds of the clash between Israel and Palestine.
All in all, with no resolution being adopted to condemn Israel for violence and indiscriminate attacks against civilians in Palestine, it is safe to call the Monday meeting a fruitless effort.
