Palestine seek UN support to end Israel occupation

Palestinian officials are to present a draft resolution to the UN Security Council seeking a two-year deadline for Israel to end its occupation, an official has said.

“The Palestinian leadership took a decision to go to the Security Council next Wednesday to vote … to end the occupation,” senior Palestine Liberation Organisation member, Wassel Abu Yussef, told the AFP news agency on Sunday after a meeting in Ramallah.

The Israeli foreign ministry declined to comment ahead of Monday’s meeting in Rome between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Jordan last month circulated a draft Palestinian text setting November 2016 as a deadline for the end of the Israeli occupation.

But the text ran into opposition from the US, which has veto power, as it set a two-year timetable for the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the West Bank.

Netanyahu rejected all talk of withdrawing from East Jerusalem and the West Bank within two years on Sunday, saying pulling out now would bring “Islamic extremists to the suburbs of Tel Aviv and to the heart of Jerusalem”.

The US, Israel’s closest ally, has consistently used its UN veto power to block moves it sees as anti-Israel, but US officials said they drew a distinction between a unilateral step, and an effort to draw up a multilateral resolution at the UN Security Council, which would have the backing of many nations.