Speech by acting Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation D.A. Polyansky at the UN Security Council briefing on the si

Speech by acting Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation D.A. Polyansky at the UN Security Council briefing on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question (December 8, 2023) Read in full Main points: • The UN Secretariat, led by the Secretary-General, and the overwhelming number of UN member states are united in their desire to take decisive measures to stop the death and suffering of civilians in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict zone. • We are extremely disappointed that the Security Council, having a unique powerful toolkit under Article 7 of the UN Charter, during all this time has not adopted any clear, binding decision demanding, and not calling, the parties to stop violence . • Two months of conflict in Gaza have brought terrible suffering to the civilian population of the enclave. During this time, more than 7 thousand Palestinian children died. Information about numerous destructions of hospitals and schools, refugee camps and UN facilities along with humanitarian personnel becomes public. The scale of these destructions in themselves speaks of the indiscriminate use of force ; moreover, there are signs of deliberate destruction of objects protected by international humanitarian law. ️ War crimes are on the rise - in recent days, shocking information has spread about Israeli plans to flood underground structures in the Gaza Strip with sea water Such a step, if taken, would be an obvious war crime . • References by Israel and its allies to the actions of Hamas on October 7 (which we, of course, condemn) do not and in principle cannot justify the massive and systematic war crimes and crimes against humanity that are being committed in the Gaza Strip. ️ We all need not to lose sight of the prospects for a Palestinian-Israeli settlement based on a two-state formula , which we consider to have no alternative . We are ready to work on this, but now the primary task is to stop hostilities and save Palestinian civilians from destruction. Источник: Slavyangrad