RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian Authority will “reconsider” its relationship with the United States after Washington vetoed a Palestinian bid for full UN membership earlier this week, president Mahmud Abbas said Saturday.
“The Palestinian leadership will reconsider bilateral relations with the United States to ensure the protection of our people’s interests, our cause, and our rights,” Abbas told the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Wafa said his remarks came “on the heels of the United States’ use of veto power” at the UN Security Council.
Thursday’s vote saw 12 countries on the Council back a resolution recommending full Palestinian membership and two — Britain and Switzerland — abstain.
Only the United States, Israel’s staunchest ally, voted against, using its veto to block the resolution.
Abbas said the Palestinian leadership will “develop a new strategy to protect Palestinian national decisions independently and follow a Palestinian agenda rather than an American vision or regional agendas.”
He said Palestinians would “not remain hostage to policies that have proven their failure and have been exposed to the entire world.”
And he said the stance of the US government had “generated unprecedented anger among the Palestinian people and the region’s populations, potentially pushing the region toward further instability, chaos and terrorism.”
Abbas says Palestinian Authority will ‘reconsider’ relations with US
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Abbas says Palestinian Authority will ‘reconsider’ relations with US
- “The Palestinian leadership will reconsider bilateral relations with the United States to ensure the protection of our people’s interests, our cause, and our rights,” Abbas said
- The Palestinian leadership will ” follow a Palestinian agenda rather than an American vision or regional agendas“
Thousands of Gaza children suffer from famine conditions
- “The number of children admitted is five times higher than in February, so we need to see the numbers come down further”
GENEVA: Thousands of children have been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition in Gaza since an October ceasefire that was supposed to enable a major increase in humanitarian aid, the UN children’s agency said on Tuesday.
UNICEF, the biggest provider of malnutrition treatment in Gaza, said that 9,300 children were treated for severe acute malnutrition in October, when the first phase of an agreement to end the two-year Israel-Hamas war came into effect.
FASTFACTS
• UNICEF, the biggest provider of malnutrition treatment in Gaza, said that 9,300 children were treated for severe acute malnutrition in October. • While this is down from a peak of over 14,000 in August, the number is still significantly higher than during a brief February-March ceasefire.
While this is down from a peak of over 14,000 in August, the number is still significantly higher than during a brief February-March ceasefire and indicates that aid flows remain insufficient, UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram told a Geneva press briefing by video link from Gaza.
“It’s still a shockingly high number,” she said.
“The number of children admitted is five times higher than in February, so we need to see the numbers come down further.” Ingram described meeting underweight babies weighing less than 1 kilogram born in hospitals “their tiny chests heaving with the effort of staying alive.”
UNICEF is able to import considerably more aid into the enclave than it was before the October 10 agreement but obstacles remain, she said, citing delays and denials of cargoes at crossings, route closures and ongoing security challenges.
“We have seen some improvement, but we continue to call for all of the available crossings into the Gaza Strip to be open,” she added. There are not enough commercial supplies entering Gaza, she added, saying that meat was still prohibitively expensive at around $20 a kilogram.
“Most families can’t access this, and that’s why we’re still seeing high rates of malnutrition,” she said.
In August, a UN-backed hunger monitor determined that famine conditions were affecting about half a million people — or a quarter of Gaza’s population.
Children were severly affected by hunger as the war progressed, with experts warning that the effects could cause lasting damage.
