Security Council meets on recent violence in Middle East ahead of Paris talks
3 October -- The Security Council held a formal meeting today to discuss the recent wave of violence in the Middle East amid calls for a resumption of the peace process, with talks between the parties scheduled to be held tomorrow in Paris.
All 15 members of the Council took part in the debate, as well as representatives of Israel, Palestine, South Africa and Egypt. Many participants stressed the imperative of ending the tragic violence and bringing the peace process back on track.
The Permanent Observer for Palestine, Nasser Al-Kidwa, said that on 28 September, Ariel Sharon took a "provocative" step when he visited al-Haram al-Sharif in occupied east Jerusalem accompanied by a "huge number" of Israeli security forces, leading to the escalation of tension which resulted in clashes that caused injury to vast numbers of Palestinians. Israel used its full military power, he said, adding that more died during the brutal and severe attacks that continued in the days that followed.
Mr. Al-Kidwa said this amounted to a violation of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, stressing that those responsible must be brought to justice and calling for an investigation. The Security Council was responsible for ending Israel's brutality and its violation of Council resolutions and international humanitarian law, he said. This would be critical not only to upholding law, but also to "creating the necessary favourable environment so that the peace process could be resuscitated and perhaps later could be resumed, towards the final agreement between the two sides."
Israeli Ambassador Yehuda Lancry expressed his "profound sadness" at the loss of human life that occurred in recent days, a feeling he said was widely shared in Israel. He went on to say that the recent wave of violence had been building over time. "Though some are inclined to assign exclusive responsibility to Israel for these acts of provocation, the reality is far less simplistic," he said, adding that Israel had not been faced with peaceful demonstrators, but rather with a coordinated escalation of violent confrontation throughout the West Bank and Gaza.
Israeli security forces, he said, had exercised all possible restraint and had only taken action as a last resort. He blamed the Palestinian Authority for the escalation, saying it had incited the population through calls to violence. "It is regrettable that at such a sensitive time in the Middle East peace process, the Palestinians have once again decided to resort to violence for political gain," he said. He reiterated Israel's commitment to achieving a peace settlement, and looked forward to tomorrow's meeting in Paris between Prime Minister Barak and Yasser Arafat, the President of the Palestinian Authority.
Meanwhile, Secretary-General Kofi Annan is scheduled to travel to Paris tomorrow, where he may meet with the parties to the peace process.
The Security Council, which is expected to continue its formal meeting on the issue tomorrow afternoon, had discussed the violence in closed session yesterday from 6 p.m. until nearly midnight.
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