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UN: 2022 deadliest for Palestinians in W. Bank

UN: 2022 deadliest for Palestinians in W. Bank

Newslooks- UNITED NATIONS (AP)

The U.N. Mideast envoy said 2022 is on course to be the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since the U.N. started tracking fatalities in 2005, and he called for immediate action to calm “an explosive situation” and move toward renewing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

Tor Wennesland told the U.N. Security Council that “mounting hopelessness, anger and tension have once again erupted into a deadly cycle of violence that is increasingly difficult to contain,” and “too many people, overwhelmingly Palestinian have been killed and injured.”

El coordinador especial de la ONU para el Proceso de Paz en Oriente Próximo, Tor Wennesland
United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle east Peace Process Tor Wennesland talking to the security council.

In a grim assessment, the special coordinator for the Middle East peace process said the downward spiral in the West Bank and current volatile situation stem from decades of violence that has taken a toll on Israelis and Palestinians, the prolonged absence of negotiations, and the failure to resolve key issues fueling the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

Mourners pray next to the bodies of Khaled Mansour a senior commander in the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad and other Palestinians who were killed in Israeli airstrikes, during their funeral in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, Sunday, Aug. 7, 2022. Israel has killed two senior Islamic Jihad militants in three days of air strikes in the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian militants have launched nearly 600 rockets at Israel. Palestinian officials say at least 31 people in Gaza have died. (AP Photo/Yousef Masoud)

Wennesland said his message to Palestinian officials and factions, Israeli officials and the international community in recent weeks has been clear: “The immediate priority is to work to calm the situation and reverse the negative trends on the ground” but the goal must be “to empower and strengthen the Palestinian Authority and build towards a return to a political process.”

Mourners carry the bodies of Palestinians who were among five killed in an overnight Israeli raid, during their funeral in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2022. The military says Israeli forces have raided a stronghold of an armed group in the West Bank, blowing up an explosives lab and engaging in a firefight. Palestinian health officials say five Palestinians were killed and 20 were wounded. The target of the raid was a group calling itself the Lions’ Den, accused by Israel of having killed a soldier and attempting several attacks. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

In the past month, the U.N. envoy said 32 Palestinians including six children were killed by Israeli security forces and 311 injured during demonstrations, clashes, search-and-arrest operations, attacks and alleged attacks against Israelis. Two Israeli forces personnel were killed and 25 Israeli civilians were injured by Palestinians during shooting and ramming attacks, clashes, the throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails and other incidents during the same period, he said.

CAPTION CORRECTION – CORRECTS TO SIX PALESTINIANS INCLUDING CHILDREN NOT SIX CHILDREN – Mourners pray over the bodies of six Palestinians including children killed in an explosion in Jebaliya refugee camp, at the hospital morgue in Jebaliya, northern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Aug. 6, 2022. On Saturday, a projectile hit in Jebaliya, killing the six. Palestinians held Israel responsible, while Israel said it was investigating whether the area was hit by an errant rocket. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Wennesland said the month saw “a spike in fatal violence” that has 2022 on track to be the deadliest in the West Bank.

Mourners carry the body of Yazan Afaneh, 26 years old, who was shot and killed by Israeli forces during clashes following an army raid in the town of al Bireh, during his funeral in the West Bank refugee camp of Qalandia, north of Ramallah Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022. Afaneh and another Palestinian were killed during separate Israeli army operations in the West Bank, which raises the total number of killed Palestinians to 140 since the beginning of 2022, Palestinian health ministry said. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

More than 125 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year. The fighting has surged since a series of Palestinian attacks killed 19 people in Israel in the spring. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed.

Facebook stops
FILE – In this Jan. 22, 2020 file photo, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas speaks after a meeting of the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Facebook says it has broken up a hacker network linked to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ intelligence service, Wednesday, April 21, 2021. It says the network targeted hundreds of people, including journalists, human rights activists and government critics. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed, File)

Ongoing Israeli arrest raids in the West Bank pose a serious challenge to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority. Abbas relies on security cooperation with Israel, particularly against his Islamic militant rivals, to remain in power. At the same time, this cooperation is deeply unpopular among Palestinians who chafe against Israel’s open-ended occupation, now in its 56th year.

Shereen Abu Akleh is no less American than Joe Biden.
In this undated photo provided by Al Jazeera Media Network, Shireen Abu Akleh, a journalist for Al Jazeera network, stands next to a TV camera in an area where the Dome of the Rock shrine at Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem is seen at left in the background. Abu Akleh, a well-known Palestinian female reporter for the broadcaster’s Arabic language channel, was shot and killed while covering an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank town of Jenin early Wednesday, May 11, 2022. (Al Jazeera Media Network via AP)

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and has built more than 130 settlements there, many of which resemble small towns, with apartment blocks, shopping malls and industrial zones. The Palestinians want the West Bank to form the main part of their future state. Most countries view the settlements as a violation of international law.

rocks
Israeli police confront with mourners as they carry the casket of slain Al Jazeera veteran journalist Shireen Abu Akleh during her funeral in east Jerusalem, Friday, May 13, 2022. Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-American reporter who covered the Mideast conflict for more than 25 years, was shot dead Wednesday during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank town of Jenin. (AP Photo/Maya Levin)

Palestine’s UN Ambassador: 75 years after Nakba, Palestinians still wait for their turn to be free

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, delivered an impassioned address to the Security Council on Friday, saying: “Our people, our children, our youth are being killed, and they will not die in vain.

“What happens next is your responsibility,” he told council members. “We knocked on every door, searched for any avenue leading to freedom and dignity, justice and redress, shared peace and security.”

Yet, Mansour said that 75 years after the British partition of Palestine, its people are still waiting “for their turn to be free,” and he accused Israel of “trying to destroy the state of Palestine.”

The United Nations Security Council meets to discuss a ballistic missile test by North Korea, Wednesday Oct. 5, 2022, at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

The Palestinian ambassador challenged the Security Council to protect and promote the two-state solution, and he raised a series of questions that allude to the possibility of further bloodshed and a decades-long fight for freedom if necessary, and possible legal action at the International Court of Justice on Israel’s occupation.

“Either we live side by side, or I fear we might die side by side,” Mansour said of Israel. “Help us live. … Our people will not disappear, they will not renege their national identity, they will not accept subjugation. The Palestinian people will be free.”

Israel's United Nations Ambassador Gilad Erdan slammed the United Nations over its Commission of Inquiry into Israel, Thursday, for its one-sided report against the Jewish state. (Israeli Mission to the United Nations.)
Israel’s United Nations Ambassador Gilad Erdan slammed the United Nations over its Commission of Inquiry into Israel, Thursday, for its one-sided report against the Jewish state. (Israeli Mission to the United Nations.) (Israeli Mission to the UN)

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan countered that the message in Abbas’ speech to world leaders last month and Mansour’s statement Friday were the same: “It is a message of false victimhood, lies of oppression and fictions of aggression.”

“Israel is in the midst of a terror wave,” he told the council. “Since the start of this year alone, there have been over 4,000 Palestinian terror attacks perpetrated against Israelis — car ramming, rock throwing, fire bombings, stabbing, shootings, rockets, and many other acts of Palestinian violence have been become a fact of life for millions of Israelis.”

Erdan said “the Palestinian Authority may play victim here at the council” but he said on the streets of the West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus they “praise terrorists.”

Palestinian leaders say they want peace but Erdan said “they consistently refused to sit down at the negotiating table with Israel and have rejected every peace plan placed before them.”

At the General Assembly last month ,Abbas launched a campaign for full membership at the United Nations “while bypassing the negotiating table,” Erdan said. Palestine is currently a non-member observer state at the U.N.

Erdan stressed that “peace can only be achieved through direct negotiations and mutual — I repeat mutual — concessions.”

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