Draft Security Council resolution demands immediate halt to ‘settlement activities’

"The United Arab Emirates has drafted a UN Security Council resolution calling on Israel to immediately cease all settlement activity, and the Palestinian Mission to the UN, which lobbied for the measure, is urging members of the top panel to hold a vote as early as Monday, three UN diplomats told The Times of Israel on Wednesday.

The resolution was drafted in response to an announcement by Israel on Sunday that it would be legalizing nine outposts and advancing plans for some 10,000 new settlement homes in the West Bank in response to a series of terror attacks in Jerusalem.

The draft resolution, obtained by The Times of Israel, demands that Israel ‘immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory.’

The resolution ‘reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law.’

It condemns ‘all Israeli settlement activities and all other unilateral measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians.’

Israel annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 and considers it part of its undivided capital. As for the West Bank, it has stopped short of formally annexing the territory but successive governments have expanded Jewish settlements beyond the Green Line and the new government headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is principally supportive of the measure...

Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan penned a letter to UN Security Council members on Tuesday, urging them to condemn a recent series of attacks in Jerusalem in which 11 Israelis were killed, claiming ‘they are a direct consequence’ of incitement from the Palestinian Authority and terror groups..."