Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland said 2022 is on course to be the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since the U.N. started covering fatalities in 2005, calling for immediate action to calm down the chaotic situation and move toward renewing Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
In what follows a disturbing analysis, the special coordinator for the Middle East peace process noted that the current abysmal situation in the West Bank and a volatile situation arises from decades of violence that has taken a toll on both Israelis and Palestinians, the prolonged absence of meaningful negotiations, and the failure to resolve critical issues that aggravate the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Warning about the mounting hopelessness, anger, difficulty, and tension erupting in regional areas, Tor Wennesland told the U.N. Security Council how “too many people, overwhelmingly Palestinian have been killed and injured.”
Call for action
Making his message clear to the joint international community, including Palestinian and Israeli officials, he said, “The immediate priority is to work to calm the situation and reverse the negative trends on the ground”. Calling on both sides to take steps to restore calm, he added that the goal must be “to empower and strengthen the Palestinian Authority and build towards a return to a political process.” According to him, there is a sharp rise in fatal violence this month that has 2022 on track to be the deadliest in the West Bank.
Palestinian injuries
Mr. Wennesland gave a detailed report on the daily incidents that occurred in the occupied West Bank during the three-month conflict. In totality, 32 Palestinians, including six children, were killed by Israeli security forces during demonstrations, clashes, search-and-arrest operations, attacks and alleged attacks against Israelis. More than 125 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting in the West Bank and east Jerusalem this year, injuring many Palestinian civilians during such shootings. The Israeli army says most of the Palestinians killed have been militants. Nevertheless, young stone-throwing protesters and others not involved in confrontations have also been killed in the process.
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Tracing the history of the two-state solution
Realizing the importance of a two-State solution on the basis of the 1967 lines, he also said that the UN remains committed to helping to resolve the Palestinian- Israeli conflict. Israel seized the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and has built more than 130 settlements over there, many of which seem like small towns, with houses, shopping malls, and industries, and many countries now view these as a violation of international law.
Ongoing Israeli attacks in the West Bank pose a serious challenge to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, who seeks security cooperation with Israel to remain in power. However, the Palestinians disapprove of Israel’s open-ended occupation, now in its 56th year, and want the West Bank to form the main part of their future state.
The Palestinian U.N. ambassador, Riyad Mansour, addressed the Security Council on Friday, by saying that Israel is trying to destroy the state of Palestine and that even after 75 years after the British partition of Palestine, its people are still longing to be free.
Israel’s point of view
On the other hand, Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan countered the message in Abbas’ and Mansour’s speech to world leaders by arguing that it is only a message of false victimhood, lies of oppression, and fictions of aggression.
Highlighting the Palestinian terror against Israelis, Erdan said “the Palestinian Authority may play the victim here at the council but on the streets of the West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus they “praise terrorists.”
Stressing the pertinence of direct negotiations and mutual concessions, he said that Abbas launched a campaign for full membership at the United Nations “while bypassing the negotiating table”.
While top international officials try their best to contain brutal fighting, displacement of children, and violence against women and the elderly, it is the recognition of united talks that can pave a way for positive negotiations. Currently, Palestine is a non-member observer state at the United Nations and humanitarian peace response requires a collective effort to make things easy for those who face numerous challenges.
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