Abbas calls for UN Security Council meeting over Israeli settlements and violations in Jerusalem

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas requested on Monday for the UN Security Council to urgently convene to discuss the latest wave of illegal Israeli settlements and Israel’s increasing violations in occupied Jerusalem, Anadolu news agency reported.

Citing WAFA, the PA’s official news agency, Anadolu quoted Abbas’s official spokesperson Nabeel Abu-Rodaina as saying: “The president has asked for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss these dangerous violations carried out by the Israeli occupation authorities in Jerusalem, as well as the violations against Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

He continued: “We demand that the UN Security Council immediately work on stopping the new wave of Israeli settlements, which has been approved by the Israeli government.” He also stressed that these actions “jeopardise the peace process”.

Meanwhile, Anadolu reported Abu-Rodaina reiterating that, “discussions about asking for a UN Security Council decision on ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital are still going on.”

At the beginning of October, the PA distributed a draft resolution to the 15 member states of the UN Security Council, ahead of formally applying to the UN body, calling for putting an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine by November 2016.

On Monday, Israeli media reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a directive to start work on building 1,060 new settlement units in occupied East Jerusalem.

According to Israel Radio, 660 new settlement units will be built in the Ramat Shlomo settlement in the north of Jerusalem, while the other 400 will be built in the Har Homa settlement in the south.

The order to build the new settlement units comes after a two-month-long period of violations against Palestinians in the city of Jerusalem and almost daily desecrations of Al-Aqsa Mosque by extremist settlers protected by occupation police forces and at times Israeli officials.