Members of the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday called for the Gaza ceasefire deal to become permanent and berated Israeli efforts to expand control in the occupied West Bank as a threat to prospects of a two-state solution.
The security council’s meeting came on the eve of US President Donald Trump’s first Board of Peace gathering to discuss the future of the Palestinian territories.
The foreign ministers of the United Kingdom, Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Indonesia also attended the Security Council’s monthly Mideast meeting after many Arab and Islamic countries requested last week that it discuss Gaza and the West Bank before some of them head to Washington.
“Annexation is a breach of the UN Charter and of the most fundamental rules of international law,” Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour said. “It is a breach of President Trump’s plan and constitutes an existential threat to ongoing peace efforts.”
Pakistan, the only country on the 15-member council that also accepted an invitation to join the Board of Peace, denounced Israel’s contentious West Bank settlement project during the meeting as “null and void,” saying it constitutes a “clear violation of international law.”
“Israel’s recent illegal decisions to expand its control over the West Bank are gravely disturbing,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said.
The UNSC members’ criticism comes after Israel launched a contentious land regulation process that will deepen its control in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli Energy Minister Eli Cohen said it amounts to “de facto sovereignty” that will block the establishment of a Palestinian state, while outraged Palestinians, Arab countries and human rights groups have called the moves an illegal annexation of the territory, home to roughly 3.4 million Palestinians who seek it for a future state.
The UN meeting also delved into the US-brokered ceasefire deal that took effect 10 October with Israeli and Palestinian civil society representatives briefing the council for the first time since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel that launched the war.
Bigger ambitions for Trump’s Board of Peace?
Speaking on Wednesday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that attention was not on the UN session and that the focus of the international world would be on the Board of Peace meeting.
Saar also accused the council of being “infected with an anti-Israeli obsession” and insisted that no nation has a stronger right than its “historical and documented right to the land of the Bible.”
Initially set for Thursday, the high-level UN session in New York was rescheduled when Trump announced the board’s meeting would take place on the same day.
It became clear that this would cause travel issues for diplomats who were planning to attend both, a growing sign of the potential for overlap between the UN’s most powerful body and Trump’s new initiative, whose broader ambitions to broker global conflicts have raised concerns in some countries that it may attempt to rival the UN Security Council.
The board to be chaired by Trump was originally envisioned as a small group of world leaders overseeing his 20-point plan for Gaza’s future. But Trump’s new vision for the board to be a mediator of worldwide conflicts has led to scepticism from major allies.
While more than 20 countries have so far accepted an invitation to join the board, close US partners, including France, Germany and others, have opted not to join yet and renewed support for the UN, which is also in the throes of major reforms and funding cuts.
Mike Waltz, the US ambassador to the UN, appeared to criticise countries that had not yet signed on to the Board of Peace, saying that unlike the Security Council, the board is “not talking; it is doing.”
“We are hearing the chattering class criticising the structure of the board, that it’s unconventional, that it’s unprecedented,” Waltz said Wednesday. “Again, the old ways were not working.”
Earlier this week, Trump said that the Board of Peace members have pledged $5 billion toward Gaza reconstruction and will commit thousands of personnel to international stabilisation and police forces for the territory.
Not much details have emerged about this, but Indonesia’s military says up to 8,000 of its troops are expected to be ready by the end of June for a potential deployment to Gaza as part of a humanitarian and peace mission.