| Date | 1 March 2008 |
|---|---|
| Started | 20:30 |
| Ended | 21:05 |
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The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question Letter dated 1 March 2008 from the Permanent Representative of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council (S/2008/142)
| President: |  | Mr. Churkin Russia |
(The Presidency changes each month to the next member in alphabetical order) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Members: |  | Mr. Belle Belgium |
 | Mr. Koudougou Burkina Faso |
 | Mr. Liu Zhenmin China |
 | Mr. Ballestero Costa Rica |
 | Mr. Jurica Croatia |
 | Mr. Lacroix France |
|
 | Mr. Natalegawa Indonesia |
 | Mr. Mantovani Italy |
 | Mr. Ettalhi Libya |
|
 | Mr. Arias Panama |
 | Mr. Kumalo South Africa |
 | Sir John Sawers United Kingdom |
|
 | Mr. Khalilzad United States |
 | Mr. Hoang Chi Trung Viet Nam |
|||
Expression of thanks to the retiring President
The President
As this is the first meeting of the Security Council for the month of March 2008, I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute, on behalf of the Council, to His Excellency Mr. Ricardo Alberto Arias, Permanent Representative of Panama to the United Nations, for his service as President of the Security Council for the month of February 2008. I am sure I speak for all members of the Security Council in expressing deep appreciation to Ambassador Arias for the great diplomatic skill with which he conducted the Council's business last month.
Adoption of the agenda
The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question
Letter dated 1 March 2008 from the Permanent Representative of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council (S/2008/142)
The President
I should like to inform the Council that I have received a letter from the representative of Israel in which he requests to be invited to participate in the consideration of the item on the Council's agenda. In conformity with the usual practice, I propose, with the consent of the Council, to invite that representative to participate in the consideration of the item, without the right to vote, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Charter and rule 37 of the Council's provisional rules of procedure.
There being no objection, it is so decided.
The President
I should like to inform the Council that I have received a letter dated 1 March 2008 from the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, which will be issued as document S/2008/143 and which reads as follows:
"I have the honour to request that, in accordance with its previous practice, the Security Council invite the Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations to participate in the meeting of the Security Council which will be held on Saturday, 1 March 2008, regarding the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question."
I propose, with the consent of the Council, to invite the Permanent Observer of Palestine to participate in the meeting, in accordance with the provisional rules of procedure and previous practice in this regard.
There being no objection, it is so decided.
The President
The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. The Council is meeting in response to the letter dated 1 March 2008 from the Permanent Representative of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya contained in document S/2008/142.
I should like to draw the attention of the members of the Council to photocopies of a document to be issued under the symbol S/2008/144, which contains identical letters dated 1 March 2008 from the Permanent Observer of Palestine addressed to the Secretary-General and to the President of the Security Council.
I welcome the presence of the Secretary-General, His Excellency, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, at this meeting. I now give him the floor.
The Secretary-General
Before I begin, I would like to express my felicitations to you, Sir, on your assumption of the presidency of the Security Council for the month of March. I would also like to express my appreciation to Ambassador Arias of Panama for his able conduct of the work of the Council during the month of February.
Since last Wednesday, there has been a deeply alarming escalation of violence in Gaza and southern Israel, and a terrible civilian death toll. The scenes from Gaza today have been particularly disturbing. Some 117 rockets have been fired from Gaza at southern Israel, including 26 rockets today. Those rockets have been fired at several civilian centres and have extended as far north as the Israeli city of Ashkelon. According to press reports and Israeli Government sources, the rockets fired at Ashkelon are not home-made Qassams, but rather rockets of advanced Katyusha-like design, allegedly smuggled into Gaza when the border with Egypt was breached. One Israeli civilian has been killed in Sderot and five civilians were reported injured in Ashkelon today, including women and children.
During this same period, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have undertaken attacks from the air and by land on targets in the Gaza Strip. An estimated 90 Palestinians have been killed, among them many civilians, and injuries are in the hundreds. According to United Nations estimates, 59 Palestinians were killed today, including 39 civilians, among them three women and five minors, including an infant. Let me stress that there are many conflicting reports on the numbers of casualties, and those figures are not confirmed. Additionally, there has been heavy property damage.
Israeli land incursions are taking place near Jabaliya and the northern Gaza Strip. Two Israeli soldiers are reported to have been killed in the fighting. The IDF reports that it destroyed a truck carrying 160 rockets. United Nations sources report at least four incidents of Israeli fire against ambulances and medical personnel. The Palestinian Ministry of Health has issued a call for diesel in order to operate its ambulances. All schools of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) have been closed, and many families are trapped inside their houses by the violence, unable to obtain medical aid or reach safety. I call on Israel to facilitate full access to hospitals and medical centres for the injured.
At the outset of this escalation, I publicly made clear my deep concern, and I have been diplomatically engaged to press for a calming of the violence. I have spoken today to Palestinian President Abbas, Israeli Foreign Minister Livni and League of Arab States Secretary-General Amr Moussa. United Nations agencies on the ground, especially UNRWA, are continuing their efforts to assist people in grave distress.
In the light of those deeply disturbing developments, I would like to make the following clear.
I condemn Palestinian rocket attacks and call for the immediate cessation of such acts of terrorism, which serve no purpose, endanger Israeli civilians and bring misery to the Palestinian people. I call for an end to these attacks.
While recognizing Israel's right to defend itself, I condemn the disproportionate and excessive use of force that has killed and injured so many civilians, including children. I call on Israel to cease such attacks. Israel must fully comply with international humanitarian law and exercise the utmost restraint. Incidents in which civilians have been killed or injured must be investigated and accountability must be ensured.
I am deeply concerned at the possibility of the violence escalating, and have offered our strong support for all efforts to bring about an end to the violence and a period of calm. I call on all parties to step back from the brink of even deeper and more deadly clashes.
I am also extremely concerned at the impact of these developments on the negotiation process. I call on all members of the international community, important stakeholders and Security Council members to exercise their influence on the parties to stop the violence and to allow humanitarian relief. All parties should rededicate their commitment to the peace process.
The President
I thank the Secretary-General for his briefing.
I now give the floor to the Permanent Observer of Palestine.
Mr. Mansour (Palestine)
--> -->
| <type 'exceptions.UnicodeEncodeError'> | Python 2.6.6: /usr/bin/python Tue May 21 20:50:12 2013 |
A problem occurred in a Python script. Here is the sequence of function calls leading up to the error, in the order they occurred.
| /data/vhost/www.undemocracy.com/docs/trunk.py in |
| 194 if __name__ == "__main__": |
| 195 pathpart = os.getenv("PATH_INFO") |
| 196 maintrunk(pathpart) |
| 197 |
| 198 |
| maintrunk = <function maintrunk>, pathpart = '/securitycouncil/meeting_5847' |
| /data/vhost/www.undemocracy.com/docs/trunk.py in maintrunk(pathpart='/securitycouncil/meeting_5847') |
| 138 elif pagefunc == "scmeeting": |
| 139 LogIncomingDB(hmap["docid"], "0", referrer, ipaddress, useragent, remadeurl) |
| 140 WriteHTML(hmap["htmlfile"], hmap["pdfinfo"], "", hmap["highlightdoclink"]) |
| 141 |
| 142 elif pagefunc == "sctopics": |
| global WriteHTML = <function WriteHTML>, hmap = {'docid': 'S-PV-5847', 'highlightdoclink': '', 'htmlfile': '/home/undemocracy/undata/html/S-PV-5847.html', 'pagefunc': 'scmeeting', 'pdfinfo': <pdfinfo.PdfInfo instance>, 'scmeeting': '5847'} |
| /home/undemocracy/unparse-live/web2/unpvmeeting.py in WriteHTML(fhtml='/home/undemocracy/undata/html/S-PV-5847.html', pdfinfo=<pdfinfo.PdfInfo instance>, gadice='', highlightth='') |
| 322 if dclass == "spoken": |
| 323 if not gadice or agendagidcurrent == gadice: |
| 324 WriteSpoken(gid, dtextmu, councilpresidentnation) |
| 325 elif dclass == "subheading": |
| 326 if agendagidcurrent and (not gadice or agendagidcurrent == gadice): |
| global WriteSpoken = <function WriteSpoken>, gid = u'pg003-bk02', dtextmu = u'<h3 class="speaker"> <span class="name">Mr. Mans...oncerned, which must be avoided at all costs.</p>', councilpresidentnation = u'Russia' |
| /home/undemocracy/unparse-live/web2/unpvmeeting.py in WriteSpoken(gid=u'pg003-bk02', dtext=u'<h3 class="speaker"> <span class="name">Mr. Mans...oncerned, which must be avoided at all costs.</p>', councilpresidentnation=u'Russia') |
| 69 print '</cite>' |
| 70 |
| 71 print dtext[mspek.end(0):] |
| 72 |
| 73 print '</div>' |
| dtext = u'<h3 class="speaker"> <span class="name">Mr. Mans...oncerned, which must be avoided at all costs.</p>', mspek = <_sre.SRE_Match object>, mspek.end = <built-in method end of _sre.SRE_Match object> |
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encoding =
'ascii'
end =
12044
message =
''
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u'\n\t<p id="pg003-bk02-pa01">Mr. President, thank y...oncerned, which must be avoided at all costs.</p>'
reason =
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start =
12043