General Assembly President Philemon Young. The UN General Assembly resumed its emergency special session on the Middle East Peace and Security
The nightmare in Gaza must end, UN General Assembly President Philemon Young said as he opened an emergency special session on the Middle East conflict. He recalled that more than 43,000 civilians had been killed and about 100,000 wounded in the war in the strip.
“The demands of the international community are clear,” Young said, adding that the Security Council is “paralyzed” and unable to fulfill its primary task, which is to maintain peace and security.
Young stated that “the conflict will only end when Israelis and Palestinians can live side by side in their own sovereign independent states in peace, security and dignity.”
He also emphasized the important role of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the region. “The Agency provides protection, shelter, food and water, as well as medical care to millions of Palestinians, especially those living in the most difficult conditions in the Gaza Strip,” he said.
“I must therefore once again express my deep concern at the recent decision by the Israeli parliament to pass two laws that, if implemented, will prevent the Agency from carrying out its important work in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” the General Assembly President said.
He added that if UNRWA is unable to carry out its operations, the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territories will only worsen.
Palestinian spokesman: ‘Brutalities unseen since World War II’
Riyad Mansour, the Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine, said “ethnic cleansing” was taking place in the northern part of the Strip.
“Every hour and every day, more Palestinian women, children and men are falling victim to Israel’s depraved offensive,” Mansour added.
The Permanent Observer said that after 424 days, “the genocide is still ongoing,” describing a scene of massacres killings, displacements, detentions, destruction and starvation. He added that the crimes in Gaza were being committed “with a brutality unseen since World War II.”
“How is this possible, how can the world allow this to continue?,” Mansour asked the countries’ representatives in the General Assembly.
Israel’s envoy accuses UN of bias
Danny Danon, Israel’s permanent representative, said the Assembly passes “the same tiresome resolutions denigrating Israel” every year. He said such actions demonstrate “UN bias.”
Danon said many UN member states are fomenting violence and promoting a “false narrative” about who is the victim. “Where were you?,” the ambassador said, recalling the attacks on Israel and Israeli civilians.
“Where are you today, when 100 hostages remain in the most horrific conditions imaginable,” he said.
Danon recalled that the General Assembly has not adopted resolutions condemning Hamas, the October 7 attack, or concerning the Israeli hostages.
How are special sessions of the General Assembly convened??
Emergency special sessions are convened to address urgent situations where the Security Council has failed to maintain peace, and provide UN Member States with a platform for discussion and the adoption of resolutions.
The tenth emergency special session of the General Assembly, on the Middle East conflict, was first convened in April 1997 at the request of Qatar in response to Israel’s decision to build Har Homa, a housing complex in East Jerusalem.
The meeting has since been resumed several times, including after the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war in Gaza Gaza.
The last meeting took place in September. At it, the General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution demanding that Israel “put an immediate end to its illegal presence” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. 124 countries voted in favor of the resolution, 14 voted against, and 43 states abstained.
A total of 11 emergency special sessions of the General Assembly have been convened since 1945, five of which concerned the Middle East.
The eleventh emergency special session was convened in late February 2022, six days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukrainian territories.