UN Chief: Israel’s Approval of 150 New Homes in West Bank ‘Provocative

Ban, for his part, speaking at a meeting of the UN Security Council, attributed the violence to mounting Palestinian frustration and a stalled peace process.

Violence since October 1 has killed 159 Palestinians and 25 Israelis, as well as an American and an Eritrean, according to an AFP count.

An Israeli woman died on Tuesday of wounds suffered in a stabbing attack in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank a day earlier in which two Palestinian assailants were shot dead, police said. Recounting in detail the brutal murder of Dafna Meir, the Israeli mother of six who was stabbed to death last week in front of her children by a 15-year-old Arab terrorist, Danon told the council that the terrorist admitted he had been inspired by propaganda clips on the Palestinian Authority’s official television station.

“They want to murder Jews everywhere and they state that proudly”.

He urged that both sides must take steps to resume negotiations on the basis of relevant Council resolutions, the Quartet road map, the Madrid Principles, the Arab Peace Initiative and relevant agreements between them.

Regarding the U.N.in general, Netanyahu said: “The United Nations long ago lost its neutrality and its moral force, and the secretary general’s remarks do not improve its standing”, Netanyahu said. There is no justification for terror. The two-state solution calls for Palestine as an independent state in Gaza and most of the West Bank. Palestinians must “demonstrate commitment” to addressing the divisions among themselves, he said.

“As the wider Middle East continues to be gripped by a relentless wave of extremist terror, Israelis and Palestinians have an opportunity to restore hope to a region torn apart by intolerance and cruelty”, Ban said.

“These remarks about Iran’s nuclear case are nothing but a new destructive trend that the Zionist regime follows after its humiliating defeat in trying to deviate the nuclear negotiations from its main course”, he said. By now, there have been no serious actions to resume the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israeli diplomats are also wary of that possibility.

Israel’s defence ministry has approved plans to build 153 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank, a spokeswoman for the Israeli settlements watchdog Peace Now said on Monday.

But instead of merely criticizing the illegal settlements, the United Nations head, this time around, also pointed out their grave repercussions.

A chief grievance of the Palestinians was Israeli settlement building on land they claim for a future state.

But, she told the Security Council, while the United States “strongly opposes settlement activity” it believes that “settlement activity can never in itself be an excuse for violence”.