UNSC warned of a threat to the two-state solution
新闻台署名 来源：新华社、《黎明报》、《阿拉伯新闻》、阿纳多卢通讯社与《分钟镜报》。由 GSRRA 编辑部翻译并节选。
The UN Security Council on Monday heard renewed calls to halt Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories, as delegates warned that escalating violence and continuous land seizures are rapidly dismantling the prospects for a two-state solution.
Briefing the UNSC, Deputy UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Ramiz Alakbarov highlighted deteriorating humanitarian conditions in Gaza and surging tensions across the West Bank.
The session reviewed the Secretary-General’s latest report on Resolution 2334, which reaffirms that Israeli settlements in territories occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, constitute a “flagrant violation” of international law with “no legal validity.”
Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Asim Iftikhar Ahmad told the Security Council that the recent developments reflect a “systemic pattern” rather than isolated incidents.
The occupied West Bank is experiencing “the largest and deadliest wave” of settlement expansion in recent history, he said while citing the advancement or approval of 4,750 housing units and a cabinet decision approving 34 settlements.
He criticised Israel’s new online land registration system in Area C, warning it facilitates the dispossession of Palestinian property, while the E-1 settlement project threatens to fragment the West Bank into isolated enclaves.
Turning to Gaza, Ambassador Ahmad warned that despite a ceasefire and the Trump-led “Board of Peace”, humanitarian conditions remain catastrophic, with over 90pc population facing widespread hunger, acute water shortages, and disease.
In a joint statement ahead of the UN Security Council meeting on the West Bank, five European members, France, Britain, Greece, Latvia and Denmark, condemned the settlement activity and demanded the Israeli government end its expansion of settlements.
Also, UN chief Antonio Guterres condemned the “relentless” expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying in a report seen on Monday, they are contributing to the territory’s worst displacement crisis since 1967.
The secretary general, in a quarterly report on the West Bank, said an increase in settler outposts was leading to an upsurge in violence and restricting Palestinians’ access to their land.
He specifically warned against Israeli plans to develop in the so-called E1 area of the West Bank, saying it would have severe consequences for the territorial contiguity of the Occupied Palestinian Territory and present an existential threat to the two-state solution.
Reference Link:- https://www.dawn.com/news/2011770
Zamir Ahmed Awan is the founder and Chair of the Global Silk Route Research Alliance, a think tank in Islamabad. He studied engineering at Shanghai University in the 1980s, and years later he went back to China as Pakistan's science counsellor in Beijing, from 2010 until 2016, working on science and higher education cooperation between the two countries.…
