USA: UN calls for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to compromise in an effort to protect civilians

Record ID: 336562

  • Title: USA: UN calls for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to compromise in an effort to protect civilians
  • Date: 1st July 2006
  • Summary: (BN17) UNITED NATIONS (FILE) (REUTERS) UNITED NATIONS BUILDING
  • Embargoed: 16th July 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVACWWGV8WVR917YH526XF333996
  • Story Text: At an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday (June 30) to discuss Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Observer to the UN accused Israel of planning an incursion on the Gaza Strip and asserted the international community has all but ignored the Palestinian crisis.
    While noting Israel's right to security, Assistant Secretary-General For Political Affairs, Angela Kane urged Israel to use restraint, recognize the effects the violence has had on Palestinian civilians living in Gaza.
    "All parties must recognize this and act with wisdom and care and in full conformity with international humanitarian law," Kane said.
    "Nothing justifies the holding of hostages. Corporal Gilad Shalit must be released. Nothing justifies indiscriminate rocket attacks. The Palestinian Authority must act to stop them. However, Palestinian civilians should not pay the price of these actions. Israel must cease the destruction of civilian infrastructure, ensure that civilians are protected, and allow for humanitarian assistance to get where it needs to go."
    Israeli warplanes pounded Gaza on Friday (June 30), setting a blaze the Interior Ministry office of the Hamas-led Palestinian government in a widening military effort to secure the release of a soldier captured last Sunday.
    So far, Israeli planes struck 20 targets in Gaza in efforts to raise pressure on militants to free Corporal Gilad Shalit. On Wednesday, troops entered the south of the strip, close to where Shalit was captured in a cross-border raid on Sunday (June 25). Israel has also seized dozens of officials from Hamas.
    The Jewish state has put on hold a threatened offensive into the northern part of the Gaza Strip to try to give Egyptian mediation efforts a chance. International aid agencies said the air strikes have knocked out water systems and a major power transformer, cutting vital electricity supplies to hospitals as well as families.
    Israeli Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, Daniel Carmon said that Israel was currently working on aiding the humanitarian effort. He said, "The military operation now taking place is specific in nature and limited in scope. It's objective is not punishment or retaliation and Israel is taking every effort to minimize any harm of Palestinian civilians. Indeed just an hour ago, Defence Minister Amir Peretz has declared that Israel is immediately planning to take steps to ease the humanitarian situation on the ground in Gaza."
    Palestinian Observer to the UN Riyad Mansour said the international community has been "passive" in its response and urged the Security Council to to adopt a resolution demanding a halt to Israeli military operations.
    Mansour also accused Israel of pre-planning a military offensive in the region. He says the Jewish state capitalised on the kidnapping of Corporal Shalit to launch its pre-meditated plan.
    He said, "The scope and the scale of the recent military assault, and the wanton destruction being carried out by the Israeli occupying forces in the Gaza strip indicate that this flagrant military aggression against the Palestinian population was clearly premeditated and planned. Indeed, well prior to the capture of the Israeli solider on the 25th of June from a military outpost on the Gaza border, Israel had been issuing a series of threats and declarations about their intention to launch a major invasion of the Gaza strip, and began mobilizing its troops. And the soldiers capture became the spark or the pretext for the actual launching of this invasion."
    The crisis has sent Israeli-Palestinian relations to new lows and piled more pressure on the Hamas Islamist government, already straining under a U.S.-led aid embargo to get it to renounce violence and drop its vow to destroy Israel.
    U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, said Hamas is to blame for the current Palestinian crisis.
    "The attack and hostage taking by Hamas last week precipitated this crisis. Their refusal to release their hostage continues to place innocent Palestinians in harm's way."
    Bolton then continued saying that the situation in the Middle East would not be as escalated as its current situation if Syria had not support terrorist organizations.
    "We would not be where we ae right not if were not for Syria's support and harbouring of terrorists. We call upon President Assad to lend his support to international efforts to resolve the situation. And important first step in that regard would be for Syria to arrest Khaled Mashal, a known international terrorist and member of Hamas and to close down the various terrorist headquarters in Damascus."
    Earlier in the day, Arab and Muslim states won a decision to keep Israel in the United Nations dock for alleged abuses in the occupied territories, overcoming U.S.-led opposition to singling out the Jewish state.
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