Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira chairs a meeting of the UN Security Council today in New York, USA, to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Vieira, who concluded his working visit to Cambodia, postponed his visit to the Philippines and travelled to the US city on Thursday.
The Planalto Palace (the seat of executive power in Brasilia) reported that the meeting at the United Nations was convened by Brazil and that the agenda of the event will address the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, threats to security and world peace, and the unfolding of the conflict in the Middle East.
The new escalation of violence began on Saturday with an unprecedented offensive in the last 50 years directed by the military wing of the Hamas movement against towns located mostly in areas occupied for 75 years by Tel Aviv in the West Bank.
In answer to the Hamas onslaught, the Israeli army launched Operation Iron Swords, directing several waves of air strikes on Gaza.
According to the latest figures, the Hamas attack caused at least 1,300 deaths and 3,268 injuries in Israel, while the Israeli bombardment of Gaza left 1,354 lives lost and at least 6,499 injured.
On Wednesday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva appealed to UN Secretary General António Guterres and the international community in defence of Palestinian and Israeli children.
“Let us use all resources to put an end to the most serious violation of human rights in the Middle East conflict. Children could never be taken hostage, no matter where in the world,” Lula wrote on a social network.
He considered it “necessary for Hamas to release the kidnapped Israeli children back to their families. It is necessary for Israel to stop the bombing so that Palestinian children and their mothers leave the Gaza Strip through the border with Egypt. There needs to be a minimum of humanity in the madness of war,” he remarked.
Recently, the president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, called on the international community to help the Palestinian people obtain their rights and to put pressure on the Tel Aviv authorities to stop their crimes.
Brazil assumed the rotating presidency of the Security Council in October.
The South American giant occupies one of the 10 vacancies on that board for non-permanent members, in a term that continues until the end of this year.
The country is also one of the largest participants among the council’s non-permanent members, behind only Japan. Since its creation in 1948, this is the eleventh Brazilian chairmanship.
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