Palestine: Arab follow-up committee calls for emergency meeting of UN Security Council
The Arab follow-up committee which held an extraordinary meeting at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo Saturday called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council or General Assembly to examine the dangerous situation prevailing in the Palestinian territories following the Israeli escalation.
The Committee also called for an international protection to the Palestinian people and decided to continue its actions for "political and material" backing to the Palestinian people in their struggle against the Israeli occupation, said a statement released at the end of the meeting.
The committee recommended "to stop any political contacts with Israel as long as aggressions and blockade are perpetrated against the Palestinian people and authority," and entrusted the Arab League Secretary General, Amr Moussa, to ensure immediately the conveyance of material assistance to the Palestinian authority and to organize fund-raising campaigns to the benefit of the Palestinian people. The funds will be deposited in a special account supervised by the AL secretariat general.
The committee also called the Arab States to adopt a firm stand regarding the Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, as these settlements constitute a violation of international legality.
The committee is intending to ask all states to boycott products manufactured in these settlements, the statement said.
It equally warned against the use by Israel of prohibited weapons, and called for conducting the necessary investigations to sue the authors of the crimes against the Palestinian people. The committee decided to undertake high level contacts between Arab States and the United States to shed light on the serious situation entailed by the Israeli escalation, which is threatening peace and stability in the whole region.
The committee convened to hold its coming ordinary session in Amman, Jordan by mid June.
The meeting was attended by the foreign ministers of its 10 member states, namely Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Palestine. The committee was set up by the extraordinary Arab summit held in Cairo in October 2000 to support the Palestinian people.