IranPress/Middle East: “Instead of delusional suggestions on how to protect the Palestinian people from Israel, the UN should hold the Palestinian leadership accountable for the harm caused to its' own people,” said the Israeli UN envoy Danny Danon in a statement issued on Saturday in response to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres' proposed measures to better protect the Palestinians.
In his 14-page report, which came after Israeli regime forces killed two more Palestinians in Gaza on Friday, UN Secretary General laid out four options.
Antonio Guterres' suggestions included; increasing aid to the Palestinians, sending UN rights monitors and unarmed observers to deploying a military or police force under a UN mandate.
“The combination of prolonged military occupation, constant security threats, weak political institutions, and a deadlocked peace process provides for a protection challenge that is highly complex politically, legally and practically,” UN Secretary General said.
“The targeting of civilians, particularly children, is unacceptable... those responsible for violations of international humanitarian law must be held accountable”, Guterres insisted.
Since March 30, rallies, protests and demonstrations were held every Friday in five separate locations in the eastern Gaza Strip.
Thousands of Gazans took to the streets to mark the 21st week of great march of return in Gaza strip on Friday.
Israel, however, has defended its' use of live ammunition against Palestinian protesters in Gaza by invoking what it claims as its “right to self-defense”, UN Secretary General noted.
The report by Guterres was requested by the UN General Assembly in response to persisting violence employed by the Tel Aviv regime in the besieged Gaza, where 171 Palestinians have so far been killed by Israeli forces since late March.
The resolution garnered a strong majority of 120 votes in the 193-member assembly, with 8 votes against and 45 abstentions. It was put forward by Algeria, Turkey and Palestine after Washington vetoed a similar resolution in the UN Security Council (UNSC) earlier.
After Israel’s decision of tightening the blockade in Gaza by only allowing the entry of food and medicine from its main commercial crossing, Palestinians now have to deal with cooking gas shortage.
Israel has enforced the blockade under the excuse of preventing arms smuggling into Gaza for the Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas.
Under the blockade, Gaza, which hosts some two million Palestinians, has already seen an unfolding economic and humanitarian crisis. The United Nations has warned that the overall conditions in the enclave could make it “uninhabitable” by 2020.
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