Mahmoud Abbas urges UN to stop Gaza war, halt weapons sent to Israel
Israel must be stripped of United Nations membership for failing to accept a two-state resolution to the conflict and allowing the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told the General Assembly on Thursday.
“Israel, which refuses to implement United Nations resolutions, does not deserve to be a member of this international organization,” he said.
“We are going to submit an application to the UNGA on this matter,” he said.
Israel ‘has, from the very beginning, not fulfilled the conditions of membership because in 1949, when it submitted its application” for membership, the UN imposed two conditions, Abbas said.
Two conditions on Israel
The first is that Israel accepts Resolution 181, Abbas said as he referred to the text that backed the UN’s 1947 partition plan, which called for the territory that had been part of mandatory Palestine between the two world wars to be divided into a Jewish and Arab state.
The second condition, Abbas said, is that Israel accepts Resolution 194, which calls for the right of return for Palestinians who fled their homes during the 1948 war.
Abbas took the opportunity to call for the United Nations to recognize Palestine as a member state of the UN. The United States has blocked this move to date at the Security Council, which must approve such a step.
“How could the United States insist on depriving our people” of this fundamental right, he said.
He spoke close to a year since Hamas invaded southern Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages. Israel in response embarked on a military campaign to destroy Hamas, which has forcibly ruled Gaza since 2007. Hamas has asserted that over 41,000 people have been killed in that campaign. Israel has said that 17,000 of those fatalities are combatants.
Abbas in his address did not mention Hamas, although he did condemn the killing of innocent civilians, as he presented Israel as the aggressor, accused it of genocide, and asked the United Nations to stop the war.He opened his remarks by stating three times, “We will not leave” and adding, “Palestine is our homeland. It is the land of our fathers, our grandfathers and it will remain ours. If anyone were to leave, it would be the occupying usurpers.”
He accused Israel of using the October 7 attack to launch “an all-out genocidal war” against the Palestinian people as he called on the international community to stop arming Israel. “Stop this crime. Stop the genocide. Stop sending weapons to Israel. This madness can not continue. The entire world is responsible for what is happening,” he said.Abbas drew a link between Israel’s war on Hamas and its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, stating that “Israel is now launching a war of aggression against Lebanon.
“The Lebanese people are now subject to a genocide. We condemn this aggression and we that it stop immediately,” Abbas said.
Source link