On January 24, the United Nations (UN), Russia and China all issued warnings against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rejection of a two-state solution in the conflict with Hamas.
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| The UN Security Council holds an emergency meeting on the crisis in the Gaza Strip, January 23. (Source: Reuters) |
At an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on the same day, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made what was considered the strongest statement yet on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
According to him, the right of the Palestinian people to build their own completely independent State must be recognized by the entire international community and any party that does not accept the two-State solution will be firmly rejected.
The UN Secretary-General stressed that the alternative of a state with a Palestinian majority but no real sense of freedom, rights and dignity "would be unthinkable".
Warning that the risk of the Gaza conflict spreading across the region was “increasingly real”, he called on all sides to “step back from the brink and think about the terrible cost of a larger-scale war.
Meanwhile, TASS quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov also expressing concern over the Israeli government's statements doubting the two-state solution to the conflict with Palestine.
“Another important factor is the inviolability of the two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the need to implement this solution as quickly as possible,” he said.
Foreign Minister Lavrov said that the UN's decisions on the establishment of the State of Palestine should not be "buried" as in the case of the Minsk agreements.
On China's side, Xinhua reported that China's Permanent Representative to the UN Zhang Jun affirmed that it is "unacceptable" to hear statements by Israeli leaders rejecting the two-state solution and denying Palestine's right to statehood.
“Any discussion of post-war arrangements for Gaza that deviates from the two-state solution is like building a house on quicksand,” he stressed.
Noting that the top priority now is to stop further eroding the foundations of the two-state solution, the diplomat made clear that this requires ending the forced displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, and searches, arrests and attacks on Palestinians.
China calls for stepped-up diplomatic efforts to convene an international conference and launch meaningful multilateral processes as soon as possible to restore political prospects for a two-state solution.
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