Peace Will Come with Compromise Once All Understand Terrible Cost of Conflict in Region Marked by Suffering, General Assembly Told in Emergency Session

Gaza Becoming ‘Mass Grave’, Say Speakers as Middle East Meeting Enters Third Day

The General Assembly today continued its emergency session on the situation in the Middle East, with many Member States echoing urgent calls for a humanitarian ceasefire and the provision of adequate aid to civilians in Gaza.

The 193-member Assembly resumed its tenth emergency special session on the “Illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.  On Friday, it adopted a resolution calling for an immediate and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities.  It failed, however, to adopt a text unequivocally rejecting and condemning the terrorist attacks by Hamas in Israel on 7 October. (See Press Release GA/12548.)

The representative of Yemen said that in the last few weeks more than 7,000 “martyrs have fallen” including 3,400 children and 2,500 women. The failure of the international community to stop this war is a “moral” one.  “What happened on 7 October 2023, is the result of continued Israeli occupation over the course of 75 years,” he said.  A just and comprehensive peace is the only way to end this conflict and establish an independent and sovereign Palestinian State based on the borders of 4 June 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital. “Without this solution, the region will know no stability,” he warned.

The representative of Lebanon said that some Security Council members have decided to grant time to Israel to complete the military battle as if 75 years of conflict was not enough.  “We must show our unity to reach an immediate ceasefire and to end the senseless aggression,” he added, urging the opening of safe corridors to deliver basic goods for the relief of civilians in besieged Gaza, rescue the wounded and save the lives that can be saved.