The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on Monday demanding that the Israeli armed forces withdraw immediately to the positions they occupied when the current intifada began in September 2000.
The resolution, adopted by 114 votes to four with eleven abstentions, also calls for ”the immediate cessation of military incursions and all acts of violence, terror, provocation, incitement and destruction.”
The United States was among the four countries that voted against the resolution, which ”strongly deplores the lack of Israeli cooperation” in implementing previous UN resolutions on the matter.
The resolution also emphasises the urgency of ensuring that medical and humanitarian organisations get unhindered access to Palestinian civilians at all times, and calls for assistance in rebuilding and revitalising the Palestinian economy.
Despite its strong wording, the resolution represents a substantially watered down version of the original proposed by the Arab group, which the European Union had said it was unable to support.
The resolution came at the end of a day in which a General Assembly debate on a UN report into the Israeli incursion into the West Bank refugee camp at Jenin further illustrated the isolation of Israel and the United States.
A draft resolution to condemn the Jewish state for the ”atrocities” against citizens committed by Israeli troops in Jenin and other Palestinian cities was deemed ”hypocrisy” by the United States, which asked how it was possible not to condemn ”Palestinian terrorism” in the wake of a new wave of anti-Israeli violence.
In the end, the resolution adopted ”takes note of the Secretary General’s report” on the Jenin refugee camp, but does not otherwise refer specifically to events there.
The special session of the UN General Assembly took place in the wake of the latest series of tit-for-tat attacks sparked by a July 22 Israeli missile strike on a densely populated Palestinian area which killed 13 civilians — including nine children — as well the militant Hamas leader Israel had targeted.
Ten Israelis and two foreign nationals have died in Palestinian attacks in the past 24 hours alone. – Sapa-AFP