Photo by Gary Raynaldo / United Nations Headquarters in New York City.

By Gary Raynaldo /  DIPLOMATIC TIMES

The possibility of establishing a viable Palestinian state has diminished amid Israel’s continued “illegal” settlement expansion in occupied territory,  speakers told the UN Security Council Tuesday. “Over time, the possibility of establishing a viable, contiguous Palestinian State has been systematically eroded by facts on the ground,”  Nickolay Mladenov, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Process said, during the Council’s quarterly open debate on the Middle East.  Mladenov pointed out that Israeli authorities have advanced, approved or tendered more than 3,100 housing units planned in Area C settlements(an administrative division of the West Bank, set out in the Oslo II Accord) settlements.   “Nearly half of them are to be built deep in the West Bank, many in isolated settlements in the Nablus area and near Hebron,” he said.

“Day by day, this occupation is destroying the two-State solution and sowing deep despair among our people. In the last year, Israel deliberately advanced the illegal construction of of more than 5,600 settlement units, a wall, checkpoints, Israeli-only roads and other occupation infrastructure.”

Riyad H. Mansour, Permanent Observer of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, said.

Israel’s UN Representative Called On Security Council To Condemn Iran’s Acts Of Aggression 

Credit:  UN Photo/Loey Felipe / Danny Danon, Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, addresses the Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question Jan. 22, 2019.

Israel’s  Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, Danny Dannon, called upon the Council and the international community to condemn Iran’s acts of aggression and to “follow the money” supporting terrorism.   Dannon said the trail today leads back to one common supplier – Iran, “the source of modern terrorism”. He added that the Security Council must designate Hizbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad as terrorist organizations.