Abbas to U.N.: Put Palestine under International Protection
إقرأ هذا الخبر بالعربية
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is to ask the United Nations to put the state of Palestine under "international protection" due to the worsening violence in Gaza, the PLO said Sunday.
Abbas would present a letter to this effect to the U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry, addressed to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, it said in a statement.
Abbas also wants a commission of inquiry into Israel's relentless air bombardment of the Gaza Strip aimed at halting militant rocket fire into Israel.
Abbas is "undertaking several steps and measures to deal with the horrific situation in Gaza," senior Palestine Liberation Organization member Hanan Ashrawi said in a statement after a meeting of the PLO executive.
Abbas has asked Switzerland, the depository of the fourth Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in wartime, to ask signatories to place sanctions on Israel which, as the occupying power, is responsible for the safety of civilians.
Its recognition by the U.N. as a non-member state has allowed Palestine to sign several international conventions, including the Geneva Conventions.
Israel launched Operation Protective Edge before dawn on Tuesday in an attempt to halt cross-border rocket fire by militant groups in Gaza, with the overall Palestinian death toll rising to 166 by Sunday with more than 1,000 wounded.
Ashrawi said that when Arab League foreign ministers meet in Cairo on Monday to discuss the Gaza crisis Palestine would ask them to "adopt a draft resolution at the ministerial level" to be presented to the U.N. Security Council.
The Palestinians would also seek an emergency meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council "to deal with the grave conditions in Gaza and hold Israel to account for its violations of international law and international humanitarian law."
13 July 2014, 20:42
30
"to deal with the grave conditions in Gaza"
So where exactly have the hundreds of millions of $'s gone through UNWRA in the last 66 years?
13 July 2014, 22:57
01
The amount of money given to UNWRA is a drop in the bucket to the needs of millions of Palestinians. Only cold-blooded Israeli extremists want to block even this trickle of aid to a dispossessed and brutalized population - many live under a brutal Israeli siege.
14 July 2014, 00:28
20
"many live under a brutal Israeli siege"
Why don't you read just how many trucks with food, medicines and fuel, enter Gaza each day, even now during the fighting, through the Kerem Shalom Crossing from Israel? About 200
How many cross the Rafah Crossing from Egypt? Nil, Zero, None.
Who supplies them with electricity? They even fired rockets at the pylons carrying their electricity supply and cut it off.
Who supplies them with gas & water?
So it is an Israeli siege? No, it is an Egyptian siege.
14 July 2014, 10:33
00
Phillipo - Your hypocrisy has no end. You know as well as I do that the Egyptian government has had a long standing agreement with Israel about the control of products into and out of Gaza. So two hundred trucks a day are supposed to fill in the needs of a population of a million!!! This is a siege meant to keep people surviving but economically a basket case. Which brings us to your original comments about UNRWA: They provide essential services that Palestinians cannot do without. About electricity: Gaza problem is that Israel keep destroying is its transmission lines and blocking fuel on regular basis. That is nothing to say about withholding tax receipt that Israel collect on products going to Palestinian territories. So they (an I add phillipo ... he is an Israeli despite his pretenses) dispossess Palestinians, steal their land and property, herd them into camps, besiege them and then they want to deny them aid that hardly meet their basic needs. Typical Zionists!
13 July 2014, 23:34
10
I think putting the UN in charge of Gaza security may be a good idea. I believe Israel would not bomb Gaza if the UN was repsponsible for security there and the UN would ensure that no rockets are fired at Israel. Abbas seems to have come up with a plan. The difficulty may be in getting countries to volunteer for the assignment -- Hamas can't control who fires rockets, will countires under Un umbrella volunteer to do so?
