Palestinian envoy tells UN Security Council 'it is time to sanction' Israel

By Merve Aydogan

HAMILTON, Canada (AA) - Palestine's envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, urged the UN Security Council on Tuesday to impose sanctions on Israel amid its ongoing deadly attacks on civilians across the Gaza Strip.

"Israel continues taking human lives and every action possible to spread wildfires across the Middle East as we sit here on the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions," Mansour said during an urgent Security Council session requested by Algeria after Israel carried out a deadly airstrike on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians.

"Let me state the obvious. Israel does not care about your condemnations...It dismisses your resolutions. It does not even listen to your debates," Mansour said, referring to Israeli envoy to the UN Gilad Erdan.

As Erdan was checking his phone when Mansour addressed the Council, the Palestinian envoy said: "Their representative will be playing with his iPhone while you are talking."

Saying that there is nothing that can justify Israeli actions against Palestinians, Mansour emphasized that what is happening in Gaza is not "about the hostages. It became apparent long ago that this Israeli government could care less about them."

"(Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu has other priorities, self-serving ones, maniacal ones," he added.

Mansour urged the Security Council to "Wake up" and continued: "Stop imagining that you can reason with the Israeli government so it stops killing civilians by thousands, imposing famine, torturing prisoners, colonizing and annexing our land, all while you appeal to them, call on them, demand them to stop."

Calling on the Council members to not abandon their duties and use the tools they have to implement actions, the Palestinian envoy asked: "When will the Israeli government be held accountable for its actions?"

He demanded that "it is time to sanction" those Israelis responsible for reported war crimes and said: "When are you going to enforce your decisions and international law? You need to impose sanctions on those criminals."

Mansour also announced that Palestine "will go to the General Assembly to make sure that it upholds its charter responsibilities, to make sure that the determinations of the highest court in the world, the International Court of Justice, is translated into political will and momentum and to concrete actions to be pursued by the UN and its member states to end this illegal action as soon as possible."