Palestinian President to Submit Statehood Proposal to UN Chief
VOA News August 16, 2011
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas says an application for Palestinian statehood will be submitted to the U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in September.
Abbas made the announcement in Sarajevo Tuesday as he completed a trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina, where he pressed government officials to support a Palestinian bid for statehood. He planned to travel on to Lebanon, where he would seek more support for the statehood initiative.
Bosnia-Herzegovina is one of 10 non-permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Abbas is lobbying U.N. members to recognize a Palestinian state that would include the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem - areas that Israel captured in the 1967 war.
On Saturday, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Palestinian move "expected but regrettable." The statement said Abbas had "apparently decided to avoid direct negotiations."
The U.S.-brokered talks between Israel and the Palestinians stalled last September after an Israeli moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank expired. Palestinians oppose construction on land they claim as part of a future state.
On Monday, Israel approved the construction of 277 more new units in a Jewish settlement located deep in the occupied West Bank. The decision comes less than a week after Israel gave final approval to a plan to build 1,600 new homes in East Jerusalem. The U.S. called this week's Israeli decision "deeply troubling."
In a separate development, Israel carried out several airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, which Palestinian medical sources say killed one person and wounded at least four others.
The Israeli military says it struck four targets Tuesday, including a group of militants who were trying to fire a rocket at Israel. The attack came after a rocket fired from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip landed in the Israeli city of Beersheba. No injuries were reported.
Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
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