Kuwait blocks US-drafted statement condemning Hamas at UNSC

UNITED NATIONS, May 31 (APP)::A senior United Nations official has warned that this week’s rocket fire across the border between Gaza and Israel shows how close the region is “to the brink of war”, and urged the international community to do more to push Israelis and Palestinians return to the negotiating table.
Nikolay Mladenov, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, told an emergency meeting of the Security Council on Wednesday that the recent hostilities marked the most serious escalation since the 2014 conflict between Hamas and Israel.
Ahead of the meeting of the 15-member Council, Kuwait blocked a U.S.-drafted statement condemning rocket attacks on Israel.
Kuwait is a non-permanent member of the council, and represents the Arab countries. A Council statement must have the consent of all members.
The meeting was called by the United States to discuss what it called the nearly 24 hours of rocket and mortar strikes from Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip on southern Israeli communities.
Kuwait had circulated its own draft resolution about two weeks ago calling for an international protection mission for the Palestinians, following Israeli troops’ deadly attacks earlier this month on protestors along the Gaza-Israeli border that left more than 100 Gazans dead and hundreds injured.
“We cannot agree to the text put forth by your delegation especially as we are considering a draft resolution that deals with the protection of civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories and the Gaza Strip,” Kuwait said in an email to the U.S. mission, according to media reports.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley responded to the block of the statement Wednesday during the emergency council meeting. “It is outrageous for the Security Council to fail to condemn Hamas rocket attacks against Israeli citizens while the Human Rights Council approves sending a team to investigate Israeli actions taken in self-defense,” she said.
“I urge the members of the Security Council to exercise at least as much scrutiny of the actions of the Hamas terrorist group as it does Israel’s legitimate right of self-defense,” she added.
Meanwhile, quoting reports from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Mladenov, the UN Middle East Envoy, informed the Security Council that between 28 and 30 May, 216 different projectiles, rockets and mortar shells, were fired from Gaza towards Israel. One projectile hit a school playground and another caused damage to a house.
In response, Israeli jets carried out strikes on 65 Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza and destroyed a two-kilometre tunnel near the Kerem Shalom crossing, he added, noting that no casualties or serious injuries were reported as a result of either strikes, he said.
Since early morning on Wednesday, Mladenov added that the situation has quieted down, stressing that the calm must be preserved at all costs.
No one in Gaza can afford another war. No one has the right to play with the lives of two million people who have lived through hell in the last decade. No one should live in fear of an indiscriminate rocket attack, he said.
Everyone has a responsibility to do their part to de-escalate and step back from the brink in the interests of their own people and the future of their own children.
In his briefing, Mladenov also told the Palestinians in Gaza that their plight and suffering has been heard, and that work will be done to ensure that they have a ‘future beyond mere survival.’
“A future of freedom and development, a future focused on peace and prosperity where you are the masters of your own fate. A future for all Palestinians, under a single, democratic and legitimate Government, living in a State of Palestine side-by-side in peace and security with the State of Israel,” he said, adding that for it to happen, “we need to make sure that calm persists, that the militant build-up ends and that we deny those who want to disrupt peace any opportunity to do so.”
Concluding his remarks, the UN envoy called on the international community to intensify calls on Israel and Palestine to undertake concrete steps to advance the goal of a just and sustainable peace.
“Such actions must encompass the overarching political objectives: the unification of Gaza and the West Bank under a single, democratic and legitimate Palestinian Authority; an end to the occupation; and a resolution of the wider Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of a two-state solution and in line with previous agreements and relevant UN resolutions,” he said.