Minister calls on Israel to halt building of settlements
▶ Khalifa Al Marar tells the UN Security Council that complacency about the two-state solution must end
UAE Minister of State Khalifa Al Marar has called on Israel to cease all settlement activities.
Mr Al Marar was speaking at Tuesday’s UN Security Council session on the Middle East.
“We reiterate our call on Israel to immediately cease all its settlements activities, reverse the negative trends on the ground and uphold its responsibilities in accordance with international law, including international humanitarian law,” he said.
Referring to figures from the
UN, he said almost 700,000 people live in 279 illegally built settlements on occupied Palestinian territory.
“These numbers represent alarming facts and highlight the urgent need to protect the two-state solution,” Mr Al Marar added.
US-brokered peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza have been stalled for almost a decade and there is no sign of them being revived.
Mr Al Marar emphasised the need to avoid all action that would undermine a two-state solution and to restore an environment that would allow talks between both parties to be restarted.
It is no longer possible for the international community to deal with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with the “complacency we have witnessed in the past years”, he said. Last year was one of the deadliest in the decades-long conflict, with more than 150 Palestinians and 20 Israelis killed in the West Bank and Israel, UN figures showed.
“The current situation requires maintaining pressure to reduce escalation on all fronts, continuing calls for exercising maximum restraint and avoiding unilateral steps,” said Mr Al Marar, who has served as Minister of State since 2021.
He spoke about the “special status” of Jerusalem’s holy sites and arrangements that he said must always be honoured by Israel. Tor Wennesland, UN special co-ordinator for the Middle East peace process, said the current direction was neither “sustainable nor inevitable”.
He told the session that the parties, the region and the international community needed to address the underlying political, security, economic and institutional challenges driving the conflict.
“There must be an end to the unilateral measures, provocations and incitement that enable violence and prevent progress towards resolving this conflict and ending the occupation,” Mr Wennesland said.
The UN briefing was led by Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and attended by Palestinian Foreign Affairs Minister Riyad Al Maliki.
Israel’s envoy to the UN, Gilad Erdan, walked out of the session in protest, complaining that it took place on Israel’s Memorial Day.
“We made numerous requests to reschedule today’s debate, describing the deep importance of the day, yet tragically, this council refused to budge,” said Mr Erdan.
Referring to Victory Day, which commemorates the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany, he asked Mr Lavrov: “How would you feel if the council met to condemn Russia on May 9?”
UN special co-ordinator for Middle East peace Tor Wennesland said that all incitement to violence had to be stopped