New York: The UAE reaffirmed its support for the Palestinian statehood bid before the UN Security Council's General Meeting on Monday.
Addressing the council, Ambassador Ahmad Abdul Rahman Al Jarman, UAE's Permanent Representative to the UN, expressed his hope that the council would reach an agreement and accept the Palestinian bid to become a full UN member.
He said that such a move would go hand-in-hand with the decisions of many other countries, who have already recognised Palestine as an independent state based on the 1967 borders with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.
Al Jarman said that the UAE is concerned over the continued suffering faced by the Palestinian people due to Israeli occupation and aggression, especially Israel's move to further expand its colonial building activities.
Al Jarman also called on the international community, and particularly the Security Council, to take full responsibility and implement serious and effective steps to immediately halt these colony-building activities on Palestinian lands, as well as forcing Israel to lift the siege on Gaza.
"To continue ignoring all these violations carried out by Israel only serves to encourage it to continue these activities that further strengthens its occupation of Palestinian lands, and its efforts to alter the historic, religious and demographic nature of Jerusalem," he added.
Al Jarman expressed hope that the international community would increase its humanitarian, economic and financial assistance to the Palestinian people and national authority in order to help them overcome massive challenges that they continue to face.
