In a much-awaited report, the Quartet – the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations – had urged Israel to stop building settlements and called on the Palestinians to cease incitement to violence.
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Palestinians demand the territory for their future state.
But Nickolay Mladenov, the United Nations coordinator for the Middle East peace process, acknowledged that the appeal had fallen on deaf ears.
Nicolay Mladenov told the Security Council on Monday that illegal settlement expansion and the lack of Palestinian Authority control in Gaza remain among the biggest obstacles to peace, almost two months after worldwide negotiators offered practical recommendations to enable a return to talks.
“It is hard to read in these actions a genuine intention to work toward a viable two-state solution”, Mladenov said.
David Keyes, spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “it is not the presence of Jews, who have lived in the West Bank and Jerusalem for thousands of years, that is a barrier to peace”. In a position that has wide worldwide backing, Palestinians want the territory for their future state, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem as their capital.
Demolitions of Palestinian homes are on the rise in the West Bank, with over 130 structures destroyed, Mladenov said. Israel considers both sides of the city part of its eternal, undivided capital.
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Israel’s military says its forces demolished the home of a Palestinian involved in the ambush of a family vehicle in the West Bank that killed an Israeli and wounded his wife and two of their children. Israel says settlements and other core issues at the heart of the conflict, like security arrangements, should be resolved in negotiations.
