Note: A complete summary of today’s Security Council meeting on the Middle East will be made available after its conclusion.
Briefing
KHALED KHIARI, Assistant Secretary-General for Middle East, Asia and the Pacific in the Departments of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and Peace Operations, said the deterioration of the security situation in the West Bank has continued, punctuated by a two-day Israeli operation in Jenin – the most intensive of its kind in nearly 20 years. “This deterioration is taking place alongside ongoing unilateral steps that undermine a two-State solution, the absence of a peace process and the continuing economic challenges facing Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority,” he stressed. From 27 June through 24 July in the occupied West Bank, 25 Palestinians, including 5 children, were killed, and 249 Palestinians, including 5 women and 22 children, were injured by Israeli security forces during demonstrations, clashes, search and arrest operations, and attacks and alleged attacks against Israelis. Another 20 Palestinians, including 1 woman, and 5 children were injured by Israeli settlers or other civilians in shooting attacks and stone-throwing.
According to Israeli sources, two Israeli security forces personnel were killed while another 39 Israelis, including 4 women, 3 children and 8 Israeli security forces personnel were injured by Palestinians in shooting and ramming attacks, the throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails, and other incidents. “The period saw a significant escalation in the ongoing wave of violence in the West Bank,” he continued. From 3 to 4 July in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, Israeli security forces carried out an operation marked by multiple drone strikes and over 1,000 ground troops. Twelve Palestinians, including four children, were killed and over 140 injured – the most in a single operation in the West Bank since the United Nations began tracking casualties in 2005. Palestinian Islamic Jihad al-Quds Brigades claimed 8 of the 12 fatalities as members, including children.
During the reporting period, Palestinians carried out several attacks or alleged attacks against Israelis, including ramming attacks and stabbings, injuring several Israeli civilians, including a pregnant woman, he continued. The period also witnessed Palestinians attempting to launch rudimentary rockets from the Jenin area towards Israel or Israeli settlements. Israeli settler violence continues, albeit not at the scale witnessed in June. Amid the escalating violence the Palestinian security forces conducted a series of arrests across the occupied West Bank. And while the situation in Gaza remained relatively calm, militants fired five rockets from there towards Israel, responding to the operation in Jenin on 4 July. All were intercepted by Israel. Israeli security forces, in response, carried out air strikes.
“I reiterate that acts of terror and the targeting of civilians are unacceptable and must be condemned and rejected by all,” he stressed. Israel has an obligation to protect Palestinians and their property in occupied Palestinian territory and ensure independent investigations into all acts of violence. Security forces must exercise maximum restraints and use lethal force only when strictly unavoidable to protect life. Children must never be the targets of violence or put in harm’s way. The indiscriminate launching of rockets by Palestinian militants towards Israeli population centres must cease immediately. He said that the humanitarian situation in the occupied West Bank remains concerning and the large Israeli security forces’ operation in Jenin refugee camp has had a devastating humanitarian toll on the camp and its residents. Expressing deep alarm over the funding gap facing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), he stressed that $200 million is urgently needed to maintain services from September onwards, and $75 million to sustain the food pipeline in Gaza.
Statements
RIYAD H. MANSOUR, Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine, said the Israeli Government is one of the settlers, by the settlers and for the settlers. There are more than 700,000 Israeli settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. “So, let us start by calling things by their name,” he urged, stating that “the Israeli occupation is a settler-colonial occupation” and that the only way the international community can end it is to address its settler-colonial nature. United Nations resolutions must be translated into an action plan, with measures to be taken by every peace-loving State to dissuade Israel from entrenching its occupation. Israel has effectively annexed large parts of Palestinian territory and restricted Palestinians into disconnected enclaves. “Confinement for Palestinians, expansion for Israeli settlements,” he observed, adding: “It wants maximum Palestinian land with minimum Palestinians. If it can build Israeli settlements and destroy Palestinian homes without consequences, it will continue doing so.”
Against that backdrop, he called on the international community to hold accountable the settlers who walk into Palestinian villages and destroy homes, crops and wreak havoc in the streets. “We need an action plan, with the necessary resources and the will to implement it,” he stressed. The International Criminal Court investigations must start yielding results by providing justice for victims and deterring perpetrators. The International Court of Justice advisory opinion will give the United Nations and all States guidance on their legal obligations. He also urged the international community to protect the lives of Palestinian children, who – from birth – are confronted with killings, forced displacement, arbitrary arrests and destroyed homes and schools. “Protect our children as they are the primary target of the warmongers,” he said, underscoring: “They always come for the next generation. The peacemakers should do the same.”
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