The Palestinian representative to the world body called on the U.N. General Assembly to adopt a resolution seeking investigations into events in Gaza and recommendations to ensure the protection of Palestinian civilians.”My message to the Palestinian people, I said that what happened today on the ground of killing more Palestinian civilians, injuring more of them, is a testament to the urgency of needing the protection to be provided. And I said we will not relent in our quest to try to find ways to provide protection for the civilian population, because it is our duty. It is the right thing to do, and it is the thing that the Palestinian people including those in the Gaza Strip, and Occupied East Jerusalem they need, and we are determined to do everything that we can in order to provide them or to contribute to provide them with international protection,” Permanent Observer for “Palestine” to the U.N. Riyad Mansour said.
The Palestinian call comes after the United States vetoed a Kuwait-sponsored resolution earlier this month, seeking to condemn Israel for its defensive measures while demanding to implement an “international protection mechanism” that will, in effect, grant Palestinian demonstrators the legitimacy to riot along the Gaza border with Israel.
While the Palestinian Authority calls on the international community to act against Israel, hundreds of Palestinians demonstrated in the West Bank city of Ramallah against strong economic sanctions, which Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has placed on the Gaza Strip, as part of his efforts to pressure the Islamist Hamas to relinquish its control of the Palestinian territory. The sanctions imposed on the Gaza Strip mainly cut salaries of officials and payments to released and incarcerated prisoners belonging to Hamas. In addition to demanding that the Palestinian Authority pays salaries in full, the demonstrators also called for national reconciliation between Fattah and Hamas and for ending the division between Gaza and the West Bank.