Awad Rajoub
17 May 2021•Update: 17 May 2021
RAMALLAH, Palestine
The Palestinian Authority will go to the UN General Assembly for issuing a resolution to halt the Israeli aggression, Prime Minister Mohamed Shtayyeh said on Monday.
“Unfortunately, the UN Security Council has failed to reach a resolution to condemn and halt the Israeli assaults,” Shtayyeh said during a Cabinet meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
“This means that we will go the UN General Assembly to adopt a resolution where no country has a veto power,” he said.
At least 198 Palestinians have been killed, including 58 children and 34 women, in Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip since last week, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. More than 1,235 people have also been injured and tens of buildings destroyed or damaged in the Israeli onslaught.
The UN Security Council held a meeting on Sunday on the tensions between Israel and Palestine amid the former's attacks in Gaza, but the debate ended with no concrete outcome.
The session was the third to have been held by the top UN body this week after the US's two moves to block a joint statement that would condemn Israel for the violence and call for a cease-fire.
The recent tensions that started in East Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan spread to Gaza as a result of Israeli assaults on worshippers in the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Jerusalem.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognized by the international community.
*Bassel Barakat in Ankara contributed to this report
