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Tuesday 27 September 2016 - 03:48

Middle East Quartet reiterate concerns over Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Story Code : 570346
Middle East Quartet reiterate concerns over Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Leaders of the Middle East Quartet -- United States Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, European Union High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon -- met, along with French and Egyptian foreign ministers, for a briefing on the Quartet’s efforts in the region.
 
According to a press release, the Quartet “reiterated its call” for the implementation of recommendations issued in one of its reports published in July, and for the creation of “conditions for the resumption of meaningful negotiations that will end the occupation that began in 1967 and resolve all final status issues.”
 
The Quartet notably expressed concern about the continued escalation of Israeli illegal settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territory, calling it “an obstacle to peace.”
 
Earlier this month, the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) reported that settlement building had increased by 40 percent in the first half of 2016.
 
The rise in settlement construction, combined with the intensification of the Israeli policy of home demolitions in East Jerusalem and Area C of the occupied West Bank, were seen by the Quartet as “steadily eroding the viability of the two-state solution.”
 
The statement also highlighted the Quartet’s “serious concern” for the “continuing dire humanitarian situation” in the besieged Gaza Strip.
 
In a report released earlier this month, the World Bank revealed that of the $3.5 billion pledged by the international community in 2014 to help rebuild the blockaded Gaza Strip in the wake of a devastating Israeli offensive, only 46 percent had so far been delivered, leaving donor aid for Gaza $1.3 billion behind schedule.
 
The Quartet went on to condemn “the recent resurgence of violence,” which has seen seven Palestinians and one Jordanian killed by Israeli security forces in the space of a week, all but one while allegedly trying to carry out attacks.
 
It called “on all sides to take all necessary steps to de-escalate tensions by exercising restraint, preventing incitement, refraining from provocative actions and rhetoric, and protecting the lives and property of all civilians.”
 
The Quartet stressed that the aforementioned issues needed to be addressed “in order to prevent entrenching a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict that is incompatible with realizing the national aspirations of both peoples,” reiterating countless comments by world leaders on the disintegrating prospects for a two-state solution.
 
The Quartet meeting came a day after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in front of the UN General Assembly, both excoriating the other’s commitment to resolving the decades-long conflict.
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