Gaza escalation: UNGA convenes emergency session after deadlock in UNSC

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Thursday began its emergency special session on the Israel-Palestine conflict, amid a continuing deadlock at the Security Council (UNSC), and conditions in the besieged enclave of Gaza growing more dire by the hour.

The meeting has been convened by Arab and OIC groups at the UN after vetoes cast by the Security Council’s permanent members on rival resolutions prevented the 15-member body from taking any action.

Meanwhile, according to several UN agencies on the ground, the situation in the Gaza is grave, with critical lifesaving supplies, fuels to keep hospitals running and drinking water running out.

Under the “Uniting for Peace” landmark resolution, adopted by the General Assembly in 1950, the body can convene an “emergency special session” within 24 hours, should the Security Council “fail to exercise its primary responsibility” for the maintenance of international peace and security.

No country holds a veto in the 193-member Assembly, but its resolutions are non-binding, although they carry moral and political weight.

More than 100 member states, including Pakistan, are scheduled to speak in the two-day session.

The Assembly is scheduled to vote Friday night on a Jordan-led resolution that called for peace in the raging Israel-Palestine conflict.

Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram is listed to speak Thursday afternoon. He is expected to make a vigorous call for immediate and unconditional ceasefire in the conflict, stress the protection of civilians in Gaza and an unrestricted aid delivery to the conclave.

Opening the debate, UNGA President Dennis Francis said he was “deeply disturbed and distraught” at the events unfolding in Israel and Palestine, and called for a ceasefire and the opening of aid corridors.

“Yet again, we gather amidst the gravest escalation of violence and hostility in the Middle East in decades,” he said.

The violence “must end now”, Francis declared. He condemned the indiscriminate targeting of innocent civilians in Gaza and the destruction of critical infrastructure by Israel, saying, “The ceaseless bombardment of the Gaza Strip by Israel and its consequences are deeply alarming.”

Assembly President Francis underscored that the preeminent priority of the collective UN membership “must be to protect and to save civilian lives”.

“All parties to this conflict must abide by International Humanitarian Law, and immediately create the necessary conditions to allow for an opening of humanitarian corridor to the Gaza Strip,” he said, emphasizing that urgently needed lifesaving assistance reach those in need. Palestine’s UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour said, “We are meeting here while Palestinians in Gaza are under the bombs.”

He said, “You are speaking while families are being killed, while hospitals are coming to a halt, while neighbourhoods are being destroyed, while people are fleeing from one place to another with no safe place to go.”

“There is no time to mourn,” Ambassador Mansour said tearfully, pointing to the rising death toll. “If you do not stop it for all those who have been killed, stop it for all those who can be saved.”

Citing personal accounts of life on the ground, he said, “Humanitarian aid is badly needed. Hospitals are operating without anaesthetics, with doctors and patients alike wondering if help is on the way.”

“This time, it’s just too much,” he said.

Ambassador Mansour recalled Israel’s recent comments in the UN Security Council about how its people are suffering, and said Palestinians were suffering too. Israel’s representative had called to “release the hostages, then takes two million Palestinians hostage”.

“There are 1,000 Palestinians killed every day,” he said, adding that nothing could justify war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“Why not feel a sense of urgency to ending the killing,” the Palestinian envoy said. “You are setting us back 80 years by trying to justify what Israel is doing now.”

Palestinians had survived decades of occupation, 16 years of a blockade and five wars in Gaza, he said. The answer to the killing of Israelis and Palestinians was not more killing, Ambassador Mansour said, asking the UN membership to uphold UN principles and keep future generations from the scourge of war.

“The only path forward is justice for the Palestinian people,” he said. “Vote to stop the killing, vote to stop this madness,” the Palestinian envoy said.

“Choose justice, not vengeance. Choose peace, not more wars. Vote to put an end to almost three weeks of the worst double standards we have seen in decades. Do not miss this chance. Lives are hanging in the balance. Please save lives, save lives, save lives.”