UNSC fails to agree on statement over Gaza incidents

Arab Group urges UNSC to adopt stance forcing Israel to stop aggression

President Mubarak: We won't allow starvation of Palestinians

World human rights council condemns Israel

Israel backtracks on agreements reached in Annapolis

The UN Security Council failed once again to agree on a statement to help end the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, despite lengthy negotiations.

The original text of the draft, submitted by Libya with the support of Arab countries, expressed concern over the situation in Gaza and called on Israel to end its blockade and allow the entry of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.

The United States, a staunch ally of Israel, has insisted that Israel's security concerns should be addressed in the statement.

The revised version urges Israel "to minimize the impact of its actions on the civilian population in Gaza" and "to facilitate safe and secure access for humanitarian aid to the Palestinians."

It also contains a condemnation of rocket attacks against Israeli civilians.

Israel ordered the shut-down of all Gaza crossings in the wake of Hamas' violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in June 2007 and further tightened the siege recently in retaliation to ongoing makeshift rocket attacks carried out by Palestinian militants from Gaza against Israel.

After consulting with Washington, the US delegation here on Thursday put forward a series of oral amendments, including a call for the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier seized by Gaza militants in 2006 and a condemnation of terrorism under all its forms.

But most of these amendments were deemed irrelevant and unacceptable by Arab countries which feel strongly that the council has to react to what they view as the “collective punishment” of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents by Israel in reprisals for the rocket attacks.

“Our view is that getting a product will be difficult,” US deputy ambassador Alejandro Wolff told reporters after the consultations.

He added that his delegation would be prepared to accept “a balanced, credible, constructive statement that looks at this issue realistically,” including condemning the rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

Israeli Ambassador Dan Gillerman for his part dismissed the whole debate as a “futile waste of time” that only serves “to reward Hamas.”

“Israel should take note that 14 members of the Security Council, a significant number of them friends of Israel, are saying that this humanitarian situation in Gaza cannot be tolerated,” the Palestinian observer to the UN, Ryad Mansour, retorted.

And Syrian Ambassador Bashar Jaafari accused the United States of trying to politicise a humanitarian issue and of “trying to turn the victims into victimizers and the victimizers into victims.”

He warned that if Washington manages to block a consensus on the non-binding statement, Arab countries were likely to turn the text into a resolution and dare the United States to veto it.

The latest version of the draft expresses “deep concern about the steep deterioration of the humanitarian situation” in Gaza due to the Israeli blockade.

Expressing concern over the “extremely fragile” humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, B. Lynn Pascoe, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, strongly urged Israel during a Security Council meeting this afternoon to allow regular and unimpeded delivery of fuel and basic necessities to the Palestinian area.

Pascoe condemned the escalation of rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza by Hamas militants into Israel in recent days. He acknowledged Israel’s security concerns in the wake of those attacks, but said they did not justify disproportionate steps by the Israeli Government and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) that endangered Palestinian civilians.

“Israel must reconsider and cease its policy of pressuring the civilian population of Gaza for the unacceptable actions of militants. Collective penalties are prohibited under international law,” he said.

Israel must also thoroughly investigate incidents leading to civilian casualties and must ensure adequate accountability. Commercial and international humanitarian aid must be allowed into Gaza, he said, adding that in December only 34.5 per cent of Gaza’s basic commercial food import needs had been met. Moreover, the Palestinian Authority should be allowed to man crossings into Gaza, particularly the Karni crossing. He cautioned that the current upsurge in violence could thwart peace prospects in what should be a year of hope and opportunity for Israelis and Palestinians to reach agreement on a two-State solution.

“The events of the past week have also underlined the ever-present potential for the Annapolis process to be undermined by the deterioration of the situation on the ground, and in particular the continuing crisis in Gaza,” he said.

He stressed the importance of the United Nations continued presence there, as well as crisis management and containment. Israel had reopened two crossings to allow the entry of humanitarian aid and 600,000 liters of industrial fuel, with a target of 2.2 million liters by week’s end, but it was not yet clear whether the crossing would stay open, he said. Nor would that amount fully restore electricity.

Widespread electricity cuts in Gaza would continue. Without new supplies of benzene, the stocks of the World Food Program (WFP) would be depleted by Thursday morning.

Since 15 January, militants had launched more than 150 rocket and mortar attacks at Israel, injuring 11 Israelis, he said. Forty-two Palestinians had been killed and 117 injured by the Israeli army, which launched 8 ground incursions, 15 air strikes and 10 surface-to-surface missiles this past week. While the violence had significantly subsided in the last few days, the situation remained fragile. He called on Israel and its armed forces to strictly observe international humanitarian law, noting that the Israeli occupation – including with respect to Gaza – had clear obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The Permanent Observer of Palestine echoed that claim, urging the international community to call upon Israel to immediately cease all illegal acts of aggression and terror against the Palestinian people.

Israel’s punitive measures severely undermined peace efforts and reignited the cycle of violence. The Council must compel Israel to lift the siege and reopen Gaza’s border crossings to permit the movement of persons and goods, including food and medical supplies. The Palestinian Authority was ready and willing to operate the Palestinian side of all Gaza crossings. The Quartet’s Special Representative, Tony Blair, had presented a plan to Israel, which the United Nations supported.

“The current situation is absolutely untenable, humanly unbearable and morally unacceptable,” he said. Since the 27 November Annapolis Conference, more than 160 Palestinians have been killed by the occupying Power, including at least 12 children and nine women, mainly in Gaza. Since declaring the Gaza Strip a “hostile entity” last September, the occupying Power had imposed a continuous closure on all border crossings. It had intensified that closure last Friday to halt food deliveries and on Sunday cut fuel deliveries to Gaza’s main power plant.

International humanitarian assistance – the lifeline of Gaza’s economy, social services and health care – was now in jeopardy. Continued border closures would result in the suspension within a few days of supplies to more than one million refugees and other civilians in Gaza.

Israel’s representative said Hamas was to blame for the current situation in Gaza. "Rather than engaging Israel in dialogue and reconciliation to advance the two-state vision, Hamas had chosen to use terrorism and violence to advance its goal of destroying Israel, using Gaza as a base to launch rocket attacks, which were fired at a rate of one every three hours. In contrast, Israel had made the right choices, including withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, uprooting families, removing all its forces and disengaging, despite the fact that it was not required to do so by the Road Map."

Israel, he said, would act in accordance with its "inherent right under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter to protect and defend its people. A clear distinction must be made between Palestinian terrorism and Israeli defense."

"Israel had allowed electricity, fuel and medicines into Gaza and was working closely with aid agencies on the ground to ensure that humanitarian needs were met. Since June 2007, Israel’s Government had permitted more than 9,000 Palestinians to enter Israel to seek medical treatment, while Hamas had fired more than 1,700 rockets and mortars out of the Gaza Strip into Israel. Gilad Shalit was still held captive by terrorists in Gaza and his whereabouts and condition were unknown."

"Hamas did not recognize Israel’s right to exist and there was no hope in its leadership. The international community must make it clear that Hamas’ actions were unacceptable and that the path of rejection, violence and terrorism would not be tolerated by the Council."

Saudi Arabia’s representative, speaking on behalf of the Arab Group, and the Permanent Observer of the League of Arab States called on the Council to shoulder its legal, political and humanitarian responsibilities to end the aggression. They called for an international inquiry into Israel’s crimes, which they said clearly violated international humanitarian law.

Further, they called for prompt action from the Quartet and a peaceful, comprehensive settlement based on resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 425 (1978) and 1397 (2002) that spelled out the principle of land for peace, and on the Madrid and Arab Peace initiatives.

Similarly, Indonesia’s representative reiterated his country’s full support for the two-State solution as envisioned in the Road Map and underscored the need for steps to sustain the Palestinian economy, including in Gaza, as well as circumstances that would allow for full implementation of the Agreement on Movement and Access. Israel’s continued military incursions and operations in Gaza had exacerbated the burden of many Palestinians.

“Military incursions, border closings, as well as continued rocket firings into Israeli territory will not offer solutions to the crux of the problem in the region,” he said. They would only perpetuate the cycle of violence and undermine efforts to create an environment conducive to achieving the goals discussed in Annapolis. All parties concerned, on the ground, must exercise restraint and refrain from any actions that could undermine those efforts," he said.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak announced that he had ordered his troops to allow Palestinians to cross into Egypt because they were starving.

Speaking at the Cairo International Book fair, Mubarak told reporters that when Palestinians began breaking through the Gaza-Egypt border at Rafah by force, he told his men to let them in to buy food before escorting them out.

I told them to let them come in and eat and buy food and then return them later as long as they were not carrying weapons," he said, in answer to reporters' questions.

Mubarak said his border guards originally had forced back the Gazans on Tuesday. "But today a great number of them came back because the Palestinians in Gaza are starving due to the Israeli siege. Egyptian troops accompanied them to buy food and then allowed them to return to the Gaza Strip," he added.

Mubarak also criticized Hamas for continuing to fire missiles into Israel, saying that it was not helping the situation. He said that he had been in contact with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and helped convince him to resume fuel shipments into Gaza. "Although fuel was sent and electricity was back, some on the Palestinian side then fired seven missiles," he said. "This does not help to bring quiet."

In Yemen, an official source said that President Ali Abdullah Saleh called during a phone call with Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa for convening an extraordinary Arab summit in early February in Cairo to discuss the "saddening situation" in Gaza.

The Yemeni news agency (Saba) quoted Saleh as urging Moussa to "invite Arab foreign ministers to hold an urgent meeting in Cairo to discuss a date for an emergency summit at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo on February 2-3 to have consultations on the situation in Gaza. Saleh urged the Arab League to "should all its responsibilities towards the barbaric aggression on and unjust blockade of the Palestinian people in Gaza Strip and the ensuing immense humanitarian suffering, particularly of women, children and the elderly people."

Queen Rania of Jordan described the humanitarian situation in Gaza Strip as "very bad and very painful," appealing to the international community to move to "stop collective punishment and practices that only harm innocent people that are not even interested in politics."

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora had contacts with European Union (EU) Security and Foreign Relations Commissioner Javier Solana to discuss the situation in Lebanon and the region, particularly the conditions in Gaza and the Israeli measures and blockade.

Siniora conveyed the Lebanese government's strong condemnation of the Israeli practices and the risks they pose to stability in the region, demanding the EU to work on stopping such "inhumane measures".

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said she would not be held to a U.S. timetable for peace and Palestinians needed to show they had a credible government to rule any independent state.

Her comments dismayed Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad who said that without a deadline for a final deal Palestinians would lose hope. U.S. President George W. Bush, who leaves office next year, said on a visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories this month the two sides could reach a peace agreement this year.

"I don't like the timetable because it can lead to frustration," Livni told business and political leaders at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

"We need some time to do it the right way. To enter a closed room and wait till white smoke comes out ... this is going to be a huge mistake," she said. Livni said Israel would like to reach a deal by the end of the year, but she added: "We are doing this for our own sake, not as a present to the U.S. president."

"We need this period of time not just to negotiate, but .... for capacity building. We need an effective government (in the West Bank and Gaza) that can rule."

But Fayyad, whose control does not extend to Hamas-ruled Gaza, said it was important to keep a timetable for a deal. "Without it, it's difficult to see how people can buy into the process," he said in press statements after Livni's speech.

Speaking to the forum, Fayyad called on Israel to ease its blockade of the Gaza Strip that briefly cut off fuel supplies to the territory and blocked aid shipments.

Israel tightened its cordon around the Gaza Strip last week, though it has since let some fuel into Gaza. The European Union has condemned the cordon as collective punishment of Gazans. Israel says the move is in response rocket fire from Gaza.

Fayyad said attacks from Gaza into Israel must stop but "there has been a lot more violence into Gaza, and that has to stop too".

"Right now our people in Gaza do not have a whole lot to lose. Reopening passages would give them something."