UN urges new Israeli government to scrap settlement plans
Ban Ki-moon says Israel must ‘halt and reverse such decisions in the interest of peace’
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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon deplored Friday the latest plans to build Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories and urged the new Israeli government to scrap the construction projects.
Ban made the appeal after the Israeli parliament late Thursday approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new right-wing government.
The UN chief said he “strongly deplores the advancement of settlement activities on three occasions over the past three consecutive weeks” in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.
He pressed the “government of Israel to halt and reverse such decisions in the interest of peace and a just final status agreement.”
The United Nations has repeatedly called on Israel to halt the construction of Jewish settlements on Palestinian land, which it has branded as illegal and a move to erase the prospect of a Palestinian state.
“The international community will not recognize unilateral actions on the ground and that the status of Jerusalem can only be resolved through negotiations,” Ban said in a statement.
Robert Serry, then the outgoing UN envoy for the Middle East, told the UN Security Council in March that the settlements were threatening to “kill the very possibility of reaching peace.”
Serry, who has since been replaced by Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov, said he did not “know if it is already too late.”
The Times of Israel Community.