Photo taken on Nov. 19, 2018 shows a view of the United Nations Security Council meeting on the Middle East at the UN headquarters in New York. UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov on Monday asked for immediate intra-Palestinian reconciliation following the latest round of violence in Gaza. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 19 (Xinhua) -- UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov on Monday asked for immediate intra-Palestinian reconciliation following the latest round of violence in Gaza.
"The clock on intra-Palestinian reconciliation is ticking," Mladenov told the Security Council. "I urge all parties to not waste time and engage in earnest and achieve visible progress in the coming six months."
Intra-Palestinian reconciliation is in the interests of the Palestinian people. It is in the interests of peace. The success of international efforts in Gaza depends on the parties' willingness to confront the inevitable hurdles, withstand the internal political consequences, and stay committed to the reconciliation process over the long term, he noted.
Palestinian factions must seize the opportunity to engage in earnest with Egyptian-led efforts to bring Gaza back under the control of the legitimate Palestinian government, said Mladenov via video teleconference from Jerusalem.
The Palestinian people are demanding that their leadership finally reunites Gaza and the West Bank, which are controlled respectively by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and advance their goal of peacefully ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a viable Palestinian state based on relevant UN resolutions, he said. "This is what people desire, and this is what they deserve."
Two million Palestinians in Gaza cannot be held hostage to political grandstanding and brinkmanship. Their lives matter and they deserve real leadership that addresses the real problems of Gaza, said Mladenov.
The international community cannot stand idle and allow the division between Gaza and the West Bank to be further entrenched, he said.
He asked for de-escalation following days of dangerous conflict in Gaza "that risked unleashing an armed conflict with catastrophic consequences for 2 million impoverished Palestinians."
The period of Nov. 11-13 saw one of the fiercest exchanges of fire since the 2014 Gaza war, he said.
The escalation was triggered by an operation by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Nov. 11 inside the Gaza Strip in which a local commander of Hamas' al-Qassam Brigades and six other Palestinians were killed, he said.
In retaliation, militants in Gaza launched some 450 rockets and mortars at Israel in the following days, killing one Palestinian civilian and seriously wounding one Israeli civilian. An IDF soldier was also seriously wounded by a targeted anti-tank guided-missile strike on a bus transporting military personnel in K'far Aza, he said.
The IDF responded in turn with a series of airstrikes on 160 militant targets, including a Hamas-affiliated TV station and a hotel, resulting in the killing of seven Palestinians, said the UN envoy.
The United Nations worked closely with Egypt and all concerned parties to defuse tension, he said. "Thankfully, a precarious restoration of calm has now been achieved. We must all work to ensure that this calm is maintained."
