Biden s U.N. ambassador says the Palestinians and Israel should avoid actions that undermine a peaceful future By Pamela Falk Netanyahu says Israel will do whatever it takes to restore order
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told world leaders on Sunday that the U.S. will lend support should the parties seek a ceasefire, because we believe Israelis and Palestinians equally have a right to live in safety and security.
Fighting between Israel and Hamas started nearly a week ago, with over 180 Palestinians and eight Israelis dead as of Sunday, making it the worst fighting in the region since 2014.
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel s US correspondent based in New York
US President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting with Republican senators in the Oval Office of the White House on May 13, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
NEW YORK US President Joe Biden on Thursday said he did not think Israel has overreacted in its response to rocket fire from Gaza as Washington worked to block the UN Security Council from holding an open meeting on the matter.
“One of the things I’ve seen thus far is that there has not been a significant overreaction [by Israel],” Biden said, when asked at a press conference whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was doing enough to prevent an escalation.
he UN Security Council will hold an open session to discuss the escalation of tensions in the area of the Palestine-Israel conflict on May 16, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said on Thursday. The UN Security Council will meet to discuss the situation in Israel and Gaza on Sunday. The U.S. will continue to actively engage in diplomacy at the highest levels to try to de-escalate tensions, she wrote on Twitter.
It was reported that the session would be held in an open format, and it will begin at 10:00 local time (17:00 Moscow time). UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland is set to address the session.
Reuters
The United Nations must take urgent and immediate action to protect Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims facing crimes against humanity committed by China in its northwestern Xinjiang region, diplomats, legal experts, and rights activists said on Wednesday.
Speaking in an online virtual meeting, Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said that more than a million Uyghurs and other members of Muslim ethnic minority groups have already been incarcerated in a vast network of detention camps in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).
Chinese policies in the region have also led to a reported reduction of 48.74 percent in the birth rate among Muslims in Xinjiang, Roth said, calling China guilty of “the crime of persecution a deliberate effort to deprive Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims of their most fundamental rights [and] to snuff out their culture and religion.”