Israel hits back at UN envoy over Mid-East accusations

THE Israeli government has hit back at the UN Mid-East peace envoy after the latter accused the Jewish state of expropriating Palestinian land, displacing Palestinians, and building illegal Jewish settlements on Palestinian land in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

“The UN envoy to the Middle East’s remarks to the UN Security Council distort history and international law and push peace farther away,” read a statement released by the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) yesterday.

“Jews have been in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria (West Bank) for thousands of years and their presence there is not an obstacle to peace.

The press office statement to foreign journalists in Israel followed a regular regional briefing by the UN Special Co-ordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Nickolay Mladenov, to the UN Security Council in New York on Monday.

Mladenov, who co-ordinates efforts towards the peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, repeated a call for both sides to work towards a negotiated two-state solution. – ANA