Palestine UN envoy breaks down over Gaza to Security Council
The Palestinian UN ambassador broke down in tears during an emotional speech to the UN Security Council on May 28th, describing the suffering of children in Gaza as “unbearable”.
According to The National, Riyad Mansour, the ambassador, implored the Security Council to take action against the escalating crisis in Gaza.
“I have grandchildren. I know what they mean to their families, and to see the situation of the Palestinians without us having hearts to do something is beyond the ability of any normal human being to tolerate,” he said choked up, pounding the table in frustration at one point in his speech.
Whilst staunchly against attacks on civilians on both the Palestinian and Israeli side, Mr. Mansour highlighted that the international community had “double standards”.
“We are proud Palestinians. We should be treated exactly like everybody else,” he said.
Mr. Mansour condemned the passivity of other nations in addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, sating: “You cannot just see what you want in the mirror and ignore the huge elephant in the room, the Palestinian people,” he said.
“I can assure you that we are rooted in Palestine more than the olive trees … we will not wither away. We are staying in our homeland, and we will attain our inalienable rights, hopefully sooner than later.”
Israel’s UN representative, Danny Danon, recounted the pointed words of Golda Meir, Israel’s former prime minister of the early 1970s, who said: “Peace will come when you will love your children more than you hate us”.
Mr. Danon claimed UN agencies were blocking aid to Gaza, saying that several hundreds of lorries were halted at the border because of the inability of the UN to distribute them.
“As we speak, there are more than 400 lorries already on the other side of the fence, waiting to be distributed, but the UN has failed to pick them up,” he told the Security Council. “We opened the crossings. We provided safe routes for those lorries. But the UN did not show up.”
The Israeli ambassador also rejected claims that Israeli forces had killed Palestinians attempting to access US-backed aid on May 27th, whereby one individual was killed and 48 others wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
“Gaza needs an immediate scale-up of food assistance. This is the only way to reassure people that they will not starve,” the World Food Programme said in a statement.
The National/Al Jazeera/Sky
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