Frankly Speaking: Did Oct. 7 attack expedite recognition of Palestine?

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Updated 18 March 2024
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Frankly Speaking: Did Oct. 7 attack expedite recognition of Palestine?

Frankly Speaking: Did Oct. 7 attack expedite recognition of Palestine?
  • Riyad Mansour says apparent Western support for the two-state solution is an encouraging sign
  • Palestine’s permanent observer to UN notes irony of US giving aid to Gaza while sending arms to Israel

DUBAI: Statements from Western leaders indicate Palestine is now closer to full UN membership than it was prior to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel that sparked the ongoing war in Gaza, according to Riyad Mansour, the permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the UN.

In recent weeks, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron have frequently spoken of pathways to a Palestinian state, even as Israeli legislators appear intent upon blocking such a move.

“I believe these statements do put us on the course of getting closer and closer to the objective of having a recommendation from the Security Council to the General Assembly to admit the state of Palestine for membership,” Mansour said on “Frankly Speaking,” the Arab News weekly current affairs show.




Riyad Mansour, permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the UN, said “the Israeli government can’t blame anyone they wish, ... there is international humanitarian law and there must be obedience to that law.” (AN photo)

The effort to achieve such a recommendation has been ongoing for many years, having won endorsement at the Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation joint summit in Saudi Arabia in November and the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Uganda in January.

“As to the timing, the Israeli side pushed the envelope in that direction when about two weeks ago the Israeli Knesset voted by 99 members out of 120 to deny statehood for the Palestinian people.

“So, they are dictating that the timing is now, and we should proceed as soon as possible through the Security Council for that recognition, and we will,” Mansour added.




Humanitarian aid falls through the sky towards the Gaza Strip after being dropped from an aircraft on March 17, 2024. (REUTERS)

In parallel with the apparent support for Palestinian statehood and UN recognition, the US has also bolstered efforts to increase the amount of humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip.

Months under Israeli bombardment and limits on the number of trucks carrying humanitarian relief and commercial goods into the embattled territory have brought the Palestinian population to the brink of famine.

Although the Israeli military has permitted more trucks to enter Gaza in recent days, the US has sought to supplement the road route with airdrops and now plans to establish a maritime corridor to deliver aid by sea.

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Mansour noted that it was ironic, however, that the US was giving aid to Gaza while at the same time sending weapons to Israel, thereby prolonging the war and the suffering of the Palestinian people.

He told “Frankly Speaking” show host Katie Jensen: “It is very ironic. If you want to save lives and send humanitarian assistance, you should not send weapons and ammunition that the Israeli occupying forces use to kill the Palestinian civilian population.

“This is mind-boggling. It doesn’t make sense. If truly the intention is to save lives, then we should not send weapons to allow Israel to kill the Palestinians, and you should use everything possible in terms of political leverage and power to stop Israel from continuing this carnage against our people and to have a ceasefire.”




Riyad Mansour, permanent observer of the State of Palestine to the UN, told “Frankly Speaking” host Katie Jensen “the Israeli government can’t blame anyone they wish, ... there is international humanitarian law and there must be obedience to that law.” (AN photo)

There are, of course, two sides to the war.

Hamas mounted an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking a further 240 hostage, including many foreign nationals, who were taken back to Gaza.

Some have argued that if Hamas had agreed to lay down its weapons and release the hostages early in the conflict, then many innocent lives could have been spared. But Mansour has rejected such narrative, arguing that it was the responsibility of the international community to preserve civilian lives.

He said: “You see, again, the Israelis can say whatever they want. When there is war, it is the duty of the UN to call for a ceasefire and try to resolve it.

“So, therefore, at the UN, I’m devoting all my energy and the energy and the thinking of my entire team in order to accomplish that objective.

“We need to save lives. Every day, the war is continuing, more Palestinian civilians are being killed, especially children and women.




A Palestinian man kisses the shrouded body of a child killed in an Israeli bombing in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip before the burial on March 14, 2024. (AFP)

So, it is the duty of the international community to abide by the principles and the reasons why we established the UN, elected in the charter of the UN, to stop the killing, to stop the fighting, and to try to find solutions to these conflicts.”

Since the onset of the war, Israel has accused Hamas of using the civilian population of Gaza as human shields — building tunnel networks, command centers, weapons caches, and places to hold hostages under hospitals and schools where they are less likely to be targeted in bombing raids.

Does Hamas, therefore, hold a share of responsibility for the civilian death toll in Gaza?

“The Israeli government can’t blame anyone they wish. There is international humanitarian law and obedience to that law regardless of any reasoning or narrative or spinning of whatever one wants to say.

“International humanitarian law puts the responsibility on the attacking army or government to protect civilians, not to harm them under any condition or situation. They have to protect them, they have to protect hospitals, they have to protect personnel who are working in the humanitarian field.

“These are the provisions of international humanitarian law that Israel and any invading or attacking country should abide by and not to blame anyone else but to blame themselves for violating the provisions of these humanitarian international laws,” Mansour added.




Palestinian children salvage some items found amid the destruction caused by Israeli bombing in Bureij in the central Gaza Strip on March 14, 2024. (AFP)

Repeated attempts to secure a ceasefire have failed since the conflict began. Even efforts at the UN Security Council to symbolically demand an immediate halt to the fighting have foundered after the US used its veto power, shielding its Israeli allies from censure.

On whether he and his colleagues at the UN felt let down by the international community for allowing the bloodshed in Gaza to continue, Mansour accused the UN Security Council of dragging its feet.

“The international community should have called for an immediate ceasefire a long time ago, because every day we do not have a ceasefire in place, we have large numbers — hundreds, sometimes thousands — of Palestinians being killed and injured, the great majority of them are women and children,” he said.


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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a plea last week urging Israel and Hamas to agree to an immediate humanitarian ceasefire during the month of Ramadan.

“We are working relentlessly in the Security Council for that objective.

“We are grateful for the General Assembly that supported us in that regard, when we went there twice, but the Security Council is still dragging its feet, mainly because one country that has a veto power and it’s not listening to the billions of people who are calling for a ceasefire now and to almost 14 countries in the Security Council who are supporting this position,” Mansour added.

Even as consensus evades the UN Security Council, discussions between the Israelis and Hamas brokered by Qatar have also stalled.

Qatari officials accuse the Israeli government of adopting inflexible positions, while Israeli and US officials put the blame on Hamas for failing to release hostages or even agreeing to identify their names or disclose how many remain alive.




Relatives of Israelis being held in Gaza by Hamas militants in Gaza gather in front of the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv on March 9, 2024, to press their demand for the release of their loved ones. (AFP)

“You don’t have to listen to all the countries that speak today. It is not an issue trying to blame one party or the other,” Mansour said.

“Pay attention to the reports of international organizations, bodies of the UN, in which they are saying there is a famine situation in northern Gaza, and they are crying day and night; allow humanitarian assistance to scale to enter the Gaza Strip.

“And they are also saying that we cannot distribute all this humanitarian assistance to all parts of the Gaza Strip unless we have a safe way of doing it, which means that we need a ceasefire.

“Those are the objective ones who are the specialists in dealing with saving lives, civilians in situations of war. Those are the ones who are saying objectively what needs to be done — that this war has to stop, a ceasefire, humanitarian assistance in massive amounts should reach all Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

“And they’re not being allowed to do so because of the Israeli occupying authorities who declared from the beginning there will not be water, there will not be food, there will not be fuel extended to the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip unless Hamas releases the hostages.

“Therefore, they are using these illegal things to starve the population as tools of war, and that is illegal and it is forbidden and it is a form of genocide — atrocities and wholesale killing of the civilian population to attain political objectives,” he added.




Infographic courtesy of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

UK Foreign Minister Cameron recently said that the leaders of Hamas would need to leave Gaza and must not be permitted to play a role in the enclave’s post-war governance or in a future independent Palestinian state.

But Mansour pointed out that this was a matter for the Palestinians themselves to decide.

He said: “First of all, it is not up to anyone to put conditions on our natural and individual right to exercise self-determination, including our right to have our own independent state.

“These are innate rights for the Palestinian people unconditionally. The UK or anybody else, they cannot impose on the Palestinian people different conditions. For example, when Israel declared its independence in 1948, they did not negotiate that with anyone, nor did they ask for permission from anyone.

“The Palestinian people will not be the exception to the rule. They will behave in such a way that it is an innate right for them to exercise self-determination, including statehood and the independence of our state without conditions, without negotiations, without permit from anyone.”

 


UN says over 200 children killed in Lebanon in under two months

UN says over 200 children killed in Lebanon in under two months
Updated 2 sec ago
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UN says over 200 children killed in Lebanon in under two months

UN says over 200 children killed in Lebanon in under two months
Geneva: The UN said Tuesday that over 200 children have been killed in Lebanon in the less than two months since Israel escalated its attacks targeting Hezbollah.
“Despite more than 200 children killed in Lebanon in less than two months, a disconcerting pattern has emerged: their deaths are met with inertia from those able to stop this violence,” James Elder, spokesman for the UN children’s agency UNICEF, told reporters in Geneva.
“Over the last two months in Lebanon, an average of three children have been killed every single day,” he said.

Israeli army says 40 projectiles fired from Lebanon into central, northern Israel

Israeli army says 40 projectiles fired from Lebanon into central, northern Israel
Updated 29 min 58 sec ago
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Israeli army says 40 projectiles fired from Lebanon into central, northern Israel

Israeli army says 40 projectiles fired from Lebanon into central, northern Israel
  • On Monday, one person was killed and several people injured in two separate incidents

Jerusalem: The Israeli military said on Tuesday that some 40 projectiles were fired from Lebanon into central and northern Israel, with first responders reporting that four people were lightly injured by shrapnel.
“Following sirens that sounded between 09:50 and 09:51 in the Upper Galilee, Western Galilee, and Central Galilee areas, approximately 25 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into Israel. Some of the projectiles were intercepted and fallen projectiles were identified in the area,” the military said in a statement.
That announcement followed earlier reports that some 15 projectiles fired that set of air raid sirens.
A spokesperson for Israeli first responders said that in central Israel it found “four individuals with light injuries from glass shards.... They were injured while in a concrete building where the windows shattered.”
The Israeli police said they were searching the impact sites from projectiles intercepted by Israel’s air defense systems but did not report any serious damage.
On Monday, one person was killed and several people were injured in two separate incidents, one in the northern Israeli town of Shfaram and the other in the suburbs of Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv.
The military said Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, which is backed by Iran, fired around 100 projectiles from Lebanon toward Israel on Monday, while Israel’s air force carried out strikes on Beirut.
Hezbollah began firing rockets into Israel in October last year in support of the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza. Since September, Israel has conducted extensive bombing campaigns in Lebanon primarily targeting Hezbollah strongholds, though some strikes have hit areas outside the Iran-backed group’s control.


US envoy Amos Hochstein arrives in Lebanon: state media

US envoy Amos Hochstein arrives in Lebanon: state media
Updated 19 November 2024
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US envoy Amos Hochstein arrives in Lebanon: state media

US envoy Amos Hochstein arrives in Lebanon: state media
  • US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Washington had been sharing proposals with the Lebanese and Israeli governments
  • Another Lebanese official said earlier that US Ambassador Lisa Johnson discussed the plan on Thursday with Prime Minister Najib Mikati

Beirut: US special envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Lebanon for truce talks with officials on Tuesday, state media reported.
The United States and France have spearheaded efforts for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war.
On September 23, Israel began an intensified air campaign in Lebanon before sending in ground troops, nearly a year into exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of Palestinian ally Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack sparked the war in Gaza.
A Lebanese official told AFP on Monday that the government had a positive view of a US truce proposal, while a second official said Lebanon was waiting for Hochstein’s arrival to “review certain outstanding points with him.”
On Monday, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Washington had been sharing proposals with the Lebanese and Israeli governments.
“Both sides have reacted to the proposals that we have put forward,” he said.
Miller said the United States was pushing for “full implementation” of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006 and requires all armed forces except the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers to withdraw from the Lebanese side of the border with Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said that even with a deal Israel would “carry out operations against Hezbollah” to keep the group from rebuilding.
Another Lebanese official said earlier that US Ambassador Lisa Johnson discussed the plan on Thursday with Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Hezbollah-allied parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, who has led mediation efforts on behalf of the group.
If an agreement is reached, the United States and France would issue a joint statement, he said, followed by a 60-day truce during which Lebanon will redeploy troops in the southern border area, near Israel.
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,510 people have been killed since clashes began in October last year, with most fatalities recorded since late September.


Food shortages bring hunger pains to displaced families in central Gaza

Food shortages bring hunger pains to displaced families in central Gaza
Updated 19 November 2024
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Food shortages bring hunger pains to displaced families in central Gaza

Food shortages bring hunger pains to displaced families in central Gaza
  • Almost all of Gaza’s roughly 2.3 million people now rely on international aid for survival, and doctors and aid groups say malnutrition is rampant

DEIR AL-BALAH: A shortage in flour and the closure of a main bakery in central Gaza have exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation, as Palestinian families struggle to obtain enough food.
A crowd of people waited dejectedly in the cold outside the shuttered Zadna Bakery in Deir Al-Balah on Monday.
Among them was Umm Shadi, a displaced woman from Gaza City, who told The Associated Press that there was no bread left due to the lack of flour — a bag of which costs as much as 400 shekels ($107) in the market, she said, if any can be found.
“Who can buy a bag of flour for 400 shekels?” she asked.
Nora Muhanna, another woman displaced from Gaza City, said she was leaving empty-handed after waiting five or six hours for a bag of bread for her kids.
“From the beginning, there are no goods, and even if they are available, there is no money,” she said.
Almost all of Gaza’s roughly 2.3 million people now rely on international aid for survival, and doctors and aid groups say malnutrition is rampant. Food security experts say famine may already be underway in hard-hit north Gaza. Aid groups accuse the Israeli military of hindering and even blocking shipments in Gaza.
Meanwhile, dozens lined up in Deir Al-Balah to get their share of lentil soup and some bread at a makeshift charity kitchen.
Refat Abed, a displaced man from Gaza City, no longer knows how he can afford food.
“Where can I get money?” he asked. “Do I beg? If it were not for God and charity, my children and I would go hungry,”


Even with Lebanon truce deal, Israel will operate against Hezbollah — Netanyahu

Even with Lebanon truce deal, Israel will operate against Hezbollah — Netanyahu
Updated 19 November 2024
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Even with Lebanon truce deal, Israel will operate against Hezbollah — Netanyahu

Even with Lebanon truce deal, Israel will operate against Hezbollah — Netanyahu
  • Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed US truce proposal to end Israel-Hezbollah war
  • Israel insists any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in area bordering Israel

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel will continue to operate militarily against the Iran-backed Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah even if a ceasefire deal is reached in Lebanon.
“The most important thing is not (the deal that) will be laid on paper,” Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament.
“We will be forced to ensure our security in the north (of Israel) and to systematically carry out operations against Hezbollah’s attacks... even after a ceasefire,” to keep the group from rebuilding, he said.
Netanyahu also said there was no evidence that Hezbollah would respect any ceasefire reached.
“We will not allow Hezbollah to return to the state it was in on October 6” 2023, the eve of the strike by its Palestinian ally Hamas into southern Israel, he said.
Hezbollah then began firing into northern Israel in support of Hamas, triggering exchanges with Israel that escalated into full-on war in late September this year.
Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed a US truce proposal to end the Israel-Hezbollah war and was preparing final comments before responding to Washington, a Lebanese official told AFP on Monday.
Israel insists that any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in the area bordering Israel.