US blocks UN draft condemning demolition of Palestinian homes
Security Council statement pushed by Kuwait, Indonesia and South Africa said move ‘undermines the viability of the two-state solution and the prospect for just and lasting peace’
The United States on Wednesday blocked an attempt to get the UN Security Council to issue a formal condemnation of Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes on the edge of Jerusalem earlier this week.
The draft statement, circulated to the 15-member Security Council on Tuesday by Kuwait, Indonesia and South Africa, expressed “grave concern” and warned that the demolition “undermines the viability of the two-state solution and the prospect for just and lasting peace,” Reuters quoted diplomats as saying.
After the US said it could not support the statement — such condemnations require consensus from all Security Council members — a revised and watered-down version was circulated. This too was rejected by the US.
Israel has come under fire from the Palestinians and the international community over the demolition of 12 residential buildings in an area known as Wadi al-Hummus, which is part of the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Baher. The area falls just outside of Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries and is part of the Palestinian Authority-controlled area of the West Bank.
Israel said the buildings were constructed illegally and built too close to the security barrier that was built to prevent entry of terrorists from the West Bank. In the wake of a recent Supreme Court decision clearing the way for the demolitions, the buildings were razed Monday in an operation that involved hundreds of members of the security forces.
According to the United Nations, some 20 people already living in the buildings were being displaced, while 350 owners of properties that were under construction or not yet inhabited were also affected.
On Monday, several nations and international bodies, including France, Jordan, Qatar, the EU and the UN, condemned Israel’s razing of the buildings.
The EU said the demolitions undermined efforts to broker a lasting peace in the region, while senior UN humanitarian officials in the region expressed “sadness” over the demolitions and warned that many other homes could face “the same fate.”
“Israel’s policy of destroying Palestinian property is not compatible with its obligations under international humanitarian law,” the senior officials said.
Hussein al-Sheikh, head of the civil affairs department of the PA, called Monday’s demolition a “crime” and demanded international intervention.
The demolitions capped a years-long legal battle over the buildings, built along the invisible line straddling the city and the West Bank. Residents say the buildings are on West Bank land, and the PA gave them construction permits.
Palestinians have charged that the security concerns are a pretext to push them out of the Jerusalem area, and say it is nearly impossible to receive construction permits from Israeli authorities, resulting in a housing shortage in Arab neighborhoods in the city. Residents of Sur Baher fear another 100 buildings in the area in a similar situation could be at risk in the near future.
Residents say Wadi al-Hummus is the only direction Sur Baher is able to expand as the barrier and increased Israeli building in the capital have hemmed in the neighborhood from other directions.
Though Wadi al-Hummus is on the Israeli side of the security fence, the PA takes responsibility for the residents there.
Israel gained control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six Day War. It later annexed East Jerusalem in a move never recognized by the international community. Israel says the security barrier is needed to prevent Palestinian terrorists entering the country from the West Bank to carry out attacks.
