Gaza is still not at peace and conditions in the occupied West Bank are deteriorating rapidly, a senior UN official said on Wednesday, warning that Israeli measures are steadily creating a “de facto annexation”.
“Israeli forces continued large-scale operations across the West Bank, frequently involving live fire and raising serious concerns about the use of lethal force,” Rosemary DiCarlo, undersecretary general for political and peacebuilding affairs, told the UN Security Council.
Ms DiCarlo said Israeli operations have included widespread raids, home takeovers, mass detentions, movement restrictions and repeated displacement of Palestinian families, particularly in the northern West Bank.
She expressed “grave concern” about the Israeli security cabinet’s decision to authorise enforcement measures and transfer of authorities in Areas A and B of the occupied West Bank.
“If implemented, these measures will constitute a dangerous expansion of Israeli civil authority in the occupied West Bank,” Ms DiCarlo said.
Former diplomat and J Street's Israel executive director Nadav Tamir also warned that the West Bank is at “serious risk of explosion”.
“The de facto annexation is occurring daily, and recent steps towards the annexation further endanger prospect for a negotiated solution,” he said. “Palestinian communities are being displaced through terror perpetrated by organised extremist settlers.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters before the meeting that “amazingly, so many countries say the Jewish presence in our ancient homeland violates international law".
“No other nation in any other place in the world has a stronger right than our historical and documented right to the land of the Bible."
Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said "there is something fundamentally racist about this colonial narrative underlying all these illegal policies."
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, who chaired the meeting, said the international community was witnessing “an all-time high of Israeli settlement expansion and settler violence,” describing the trend as “a flagrant breach of international law.”
"This is deeply, deeply wrong, and a clear contravention of the resolutions of this Council, and counter-productive."
Ms Di Carlo said Israeli military strikes in recent weeks had also intensified across Gaza, hitting densely populated areas and killing dozens of Palestinians, including women and children.
The UN said as of February 12, 591 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces since the ceasefire took effect in October.
Foreign ministers from Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Indonesia were among those attending the monthly Middle East session as they prepare to travel to Washington for the inaugural meeting of Mr Trump’s newly created Board of Peace on Thursday.
Several Arab states had pressed for the discussion last week, seeking clarity on Gaza and Israel’s settlement activity before taking part in the Washington talks.
The Board of Peace was initially conceived as a small group of leaders charged with overseeing a 20-point framework for Gaza’s postwar governance and reconstruction.
US ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz reminded council members that the Board of Peace had been created by “this council with no opposition”, defending the initiative against criticism.
“The board is not talking, it’s doing,” Mr Waltz said, adding that the status quo had been “not acceptable” and “not sustainable”, and that previous systems had failed.
“We are hearing the chattering class criticising the structure of the board, that it's unconventional, that it's unprecedented. Again, the old ways were not working. We had choices of Hamas continuing to control Gaza, and occupation of Gaza, or a new way."
