Haaretz
Tishrei 20, 5765
NEW YORK - Arab nations demanded in a draft UN
Security Council resolution Monday that Israel immediately halt its
incursion into the northern Gaza Strip, where fighting has left at least
65 Palestinians dead.
The draft resolution, submitted to the
council in an emergency meeting
convened at the request of Arab
nations on Monday, calls for an immediate halt to a major Israeli
offensive in the northern Gaza Strip, and calls on Israel and the
Palestinians to immediately implement the internationally backed road map
peace plan.
Algeria's U.N. Ambassador Abdallah Baali, the only Arab
member of the council, requested the open meeting following the nearly
weeklong Israeli offensive - the largest of its kind launched by Israel in
four years in Gaza.
"Taking into account the gravity, the urgency
of the situation, the seriousness of the situation, we need to have the
Security Council take a decision quickly - and quickly means Tuesday at
the latest," Baali
said.
The United States indicated it would
veto a resolution condemning Israel for its military operation in the Gaza
Strip should such a resolution be proposed during Monday's United Nations
Security Council meeting, a diplomatic source in Washington told
Haaretz.
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman,
referring to the Security Council debate, said Monday that, "In the past,
as well, the Americans have not allowed one-sided resolutions to pass.
They understand that our activity is a response to Qassams, they
understand that Israel has the right to self-defense."
In sharp
remarks, U.S. Ambassador John Danforth said another resolution was "one
more step on the road to nowhere," and admonished the council, saying it
"acts as the adversary of the Israelis and cheerleader to the
Palestinians."
"That is not the way to peace. That is not the road
map to peace," Danforth said.
Nasser Al-Kidwa, the Palestinians'
U.N. representative, scoffed at Israel's assertion that the military
operation was a justified response to the firing of two Palestinian
rockets from Gaza that killed two children in the southern Israeli city of
Sderot on Wednesday.
Al-Kidwa told the council that Israeli
reacted to an attack by a "rudimentary" rocket by sending 2,000 troops,
100 tanks, more than 100 other armored vehicles and bulldozers and
helicopter gunships into the strip, focusing its sights on the Jabalya
refugee camp.
"These forces deliberately destroyed just about
everything in their way, including nurseries and grammar schools,"
Al-Kidwa said. "Now there are hundreds of Palestinians without shelter as
a result of that total demolition or partial demolition of their homes,
tens of thousands without water or electricity and suffering from severe
shortages of food and medicine, precipitating a genuine humanitarian
tragedy," he said.
"There is absolutely no justification for this
Israeli hysteria, this
widespread killing...there is no justification
for this state terrorism."
Al-Kidwa said.
Gillerman said the
Palestinian rocket attacks had become more sophisticated and created "an
insufferable situation that no country...would tolerate."
The
council once again, he said, "had put the victim of terrorism in the dock
and not the perpetrators." It was "again addressing the response to
terrorism and not terrorism itself," he said.
Danforth lamented
the cycle of violence, but rejected the Arab-backed resolution that also
demands Israel halt all military operations in the area and withdraw its
troops.
At least 65 Palestinians, many of them militants, have
been killed during Operation Days of Penitence, which began last
Tuesday.
The 22-member Arab League agreed on Sunday to ask the UN
General Assembly to discuss Israel's operation in north Gaza, referring to
it as "the grave Israeli aggression on the Palestinian people."
In
a statement issued after an emergency meeting, Arab League representatives
called on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to prepare a report on the
Israeli "crimes" against the Palestinian people and asked governments and
relief agencies to send humanitarian aid.
Several Arab countries
and the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council have condemned the Israeli
offensive. The GCC on Sunday called it "organized state
terrorism."
Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said the
attacks were "in violation of international laws and the Geneva
agreements."
Annan urged Israel on Sunday to halt the raid, saying
many Palestinian civilians had been killed. He also called on Palestinian
leaders to stop the rocket attacks.
Israel's incursions "have led
to the deaths of scores of Palestinians, among them many civilians,
including children," Annan said in a statement.
He said he "reminds
both sides to this conflict that they have a legal obligation to protect
all civilians."