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8272nd Security Council Meeting: Threats to International Peace and Security
Events unfolding in and around Gaza marked the most serious escalation of violence since the 2014 conflict between Hamas and Israel, the Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process told the Security Council today, as he called for intensified pressure on Israelis and Palestinians to advance a just and sustainable peace.
Describing the fresh fighting as a warning of how close the parties were to the brink of war, Nickolay Mladenov said that, between 28 and 30 May, 216 projectiles, rockets and mortar shells had been fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel. In response, Israel had carried out air strikes on 65 Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza. Hamas’ Qassam Brigades and the Islamic Jihad’s Saraya al-Quds had claimed joint responsibility for the rocket-fire attacks, blaming Israel for having targeted their fighters in the preceding 48 hours.
“Such attacks are completely unacceptable,” he stressed, urging the international community to join the United Nations in unequivocally condemning them. However, the situation had since calmed, he noted, welcoming Egypt’s efforts to ensure that the calm prevailed. He recalled that in his briefing last week, he had been encouraged by the Council’s willingness to consider ideas on changing the reality in Gaza. However, the failure to act immediately with a set of relatively modest, achievable interventions would drastically increase the risk of confrontation, he warned.
He went on to state that the United Nations would immediately make efforts to facilitate project implementation in Gaza and to improve its coordination with Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority with the aim of overcoming political, administrative and logistical blockages. The Organization would do its utmost to ensure that Gazans had a future “where you are the masters of your own fate”, united under a single, democratic and legitimate Government in a State of Palestine, living peacefully alongside Israel, he pledged.
In the ensuing debate, the Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine urged the Council to prevent Israel from terrorizing Palestinian civilians. “We have been brought here today precisely because of the constant mistake of detaching developments from the root causes and the reality of the existence of the Israeli occupation,” he emphasized. Israel could not claim the exclusive right to security, and attempts to justify its illegal actions under the pretext of security were totally unacceptable.
Israel’s representative responded by saying the Council should condemn Hamas for its war crimes against Israelis and Palestinians, and designate it a terrorist group. The situation in Gaza was a direct result of its refusal to condemn violence, he said, vowing that if Israeli children were not allowed to sleep at night, then terrorists in Gaza would feel the might of the Israel Defense Forces.
Many delegates decried indiscriminate attacks against civilians as illegal and unjustifiable by anyone at any time, with Kuwait’s representative calling attention to a draft resolution that his delegation had tabled requiring international protection for Palestinians. As long as the occupation persisted, Palestinians had the right to defend their aspirations for an independent and free life, he stressed.
Several delegates, including the representatives of Sweden and Ethiopia, welcomed Egypt’s efforts to de-escalate tensions and open the Rafah crossing point during the holy month of Ramadan. Bolivia’s representative pointed out that 2 million Gazans were living without electricity, medicine or safe drinking water — the result of Israel’s 11-year-long blockade of the enclave.
The representative of the United States, meanwhile, asked: “Who among us would accept 70 rockets launched into your country?” The people of Gaza did not require protection from any external force, but from Hamas itself, she said, expressing hope that the ceasefire unilaterally declared by Hamas would hold.
Describing the use of force as “a road to nowhere”, the Russian Federation’s delegate said that the Middle East Quartet (European Union, Russian Federation, United Kingdom, United States) was the appropriate forum for helping the region to surmount the long‑standing impasse. China’s representative added that his country’s Special Envoy had recently met with both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, as well as the Special Coordinator, sending a message on the need for progress on the peace process.
Also speaking today were representatives of the United Kingdom, France, Peru, Kazakhstan, Côte d’Ivoire, Netherlands, Equatorial Guinea and Poland.
The meeting began at 3:07 p.m. and ended at 4:59 p.m.