Nikolay Mladenov
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Mideast envoy told an emergency Security Council meeting Wednesday that the latest escalation in Gaza between its Hamas rulers and Israel is a warning of “how close to the brink of war we are every day.”
Nikolay Mladenov said the international community should “unequivocally condemn” Hamas’ massive attack against Israel using 216 rockets and mortars. Israel responded with 65 airstrikes on Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza.
Mladenov called it the most serious escalation since the 2014 Israeli-Hamas conflict.
Hamas said earlier Wednesday it had agreed to a cease-fire, and Mladenov said that since 5 a.m. local time there have been no attacks by either side.
“It is imperative that this period of calm be preserved at all costs,” he said. “No one in Gaza can afford another war. No one has the right to play with the lives of two million people who have lived through hell in the last decade.”
Hamas forcibly wrested control of Gaza from the rival Fatah party in 2007 after winning legislative elections, triggering an Israeli-Egyptian blockade that has severely restricted the movement of most of Gaza’s inhabitants.
Mladenov said “the dangerous escalation” in Gaza can’t be divorced from two months of mass protests at the border fence with Israel in which some 110 Palestinians were killed and large numbers injured by Israeli military fire.
“As demonstrations and protests in Gaza continue into the month of June, I am concerned that we may experience further violence and further risks of escalation,” he said.
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