Palestinian diplomat: We’ll continue to push for UNSC resolution on settlements

Palestinians will continue to push for a Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements, the State of Palestine’s Permanent Observer at the United Nations Riyad Mansour.

Mansour made the remarks at the Palestinian Rights Committee yesterday, formally known as the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

“The situation on the ground is moving from bad to worse,” he told the committee.

Mansour said that since the start of 2016, the State of Palestine had called on the Security Council to “shoulder its responsibility vis-à-vis Israel’s illegal settlements”, adding that it was “insufficient for the Middle East Quartet to describe those crimes without laying out plans to end them.”

According to Mansour, the Security Council will hold an Arria Formula meeting on Israeli settlement activities on 14 October, which, “while insufficient, was a step in the right direction.” On 28 October, it will hold an open debate, when Member States “would hopefully focus on the illegal settlements”.

Mansour said “his delegation would continue to push” for a draft resolution on settlements, “despite suggestions that it wait until the conclusion of the United States presidential election.”