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UN to hold emergency meeting on protecting Palestinians

June 9, 2018 at 9:59 am

UN General Assembly holds the 37th plenary meeting of the tenth emergency special session on 21 December 2017 [Atılgan Özdil/Anadolu Agency]

The UN General Assembly will hold an emergency meeting next Wednesday to vote on a resolution on Gaza, the body’s president Miroslav Lajcak announced on Friday.

The resolution will condemn Israel, and will be similar to one vetoed by the United States in the Security Council last week, which called for protecting Palestinians from Israeli aggression, according to diplomats.

The session was requested by Turkey as the term president of Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and Algeria in the name of Arab Union, a joint statement said Friday.

“We are mobilising all of our efforts with as many as we can reach from groups and member states to receive the largest number of votes possible to support us,” Mansour said.

The General Assembly meeting has been called for 3 pm EDT (1900 GMT) on Wednesday.

Read: US isolated at UN, vetoes popular resolution and finds no backers for anti-Hamas bill

The resolution, Ambassador Riyad Mansour said, would be similar to a Kuwaiti-drafted resolution that last week received enough support to pass a vote in the Security Council but was vetoed by the United States.

Mansour said the US veto triggered the request and that Friday’s violence “adds to our argument and to the urgency of providing international protection” to Palestinian civilians.

Resolutions adopted by the General Assembly have no binding value, unlike those passed by the Security Council.