Dozens of ministers yesterday gathered at the United Nations headquarters in New York for a delayed conference to work toward a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, but the US and Israel are boycotting the event.
The 193-member UN General Assembly decided in September last year that such a conference would be held this year. Hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, the conference was postponed last month after Israel attacked Iran.
The conference aims to lay out the parameters for a roadmap to a Palestinian state, while ensuring Israel’s security.
Photo: Reuters
French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot told newspaper La Tribune Dimanche in an interview published on Sunday that he would also use the conference this week to push other countries to join France in recognizing a Palestinian state.
France intends to recognize a Palestinian state in September at the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly, French President Emmanuel Macron said last week.
“We will launch an appeal in New York so that other countries join us to initiate an even more ambitious and demanding dynamic that will culminate on September 21,” Barrot said, adding that he expected Arab countries by then to condemn Palestinian militants Hamas and call for their disarmament.
The conference comes as a 22-month war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza rages on. The war was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Hamas killed 1,200 people in southern Israel and took about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israel’s military campaign has killed nearly 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
The US will not attend the conference at the UN, a US Department of State spokesperson said, describing it as “a gift to Hamas, which continues to reject ceasefire proposals accepted by Israel that would lead to the release of hostages and bring calm in Gaza.”
Washington voted against the General Assembly last year calling for the conference and would “not support actions that jeopardize the prospect for a long-term, peaceful resolution to the conflict,” the spokesperson added.
Israel is also not taking part in the conference, “which doesn’t first urgently address the issue of condemning Hamas and returning all of the remaining hostages,” said Jonathan Harounoff, international spokesperson at Israel’s UN mission.
The UN has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in the 1967 war with neighboring Arab states.
The UN General Assembly in May last year overwhelmingly backed a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the UN Security Council “reconsider the matter favorably.” The resolution garnered 143 votes in favor and nine against.
The General Assembly vote was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member — a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state — after the US vetoed it in the UN Security Council several weeks earlier.
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
A Hong Kong astronaut is to join a Chinese space mission for the first time as part of a three-person crew launching today, as Beijing edges closer to its goal of landing people on the moon. The Tiangong space station — crewed by teams of three astronauts that are typically rotated every six months — is the crown jewel of China’s space program, boosted by billions in state investment in a bid to catch up with the US and Russia. The Shenzhou-23 mission is to blast off at 11:08pm from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwestern China, carrying three astronauts to
UPGRADED ALERT: The risk inside DR Congo is now considered ‘very high,’ while neighboring countries face a ‘high’ threat as the outbreak continues, the WHO said Ebola is spreading faster than responders can track it in eastern Congo, where health workers managed to follow up with barely one in five identified contacts in a single day. Authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) reported 83 confirmed infections, 746 suspected cases and 1,603 identified contacts as of Thursday, but health workers were able to follow up on only 342 contacts that day — about 21 percent of the total under monitoring — data released by the DR Congo Ministry of Public Health on Friday showed. The figures suggest the response is falling behind the outbreak itself,
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
RSS