Off the wire
• Urgent: U.S. stocks end lower as oil shaves gains  • UN General Assembly president salutes late UN chief Boutros Boutros-Ghali  • Urgent: Israeli house demolitions in West Bank run counter to idea of peace: senior UN official  • Germany's benchmark DAX index rebounds  • Foreign exchange rate of Euro to other currencies  • Obama signs bill to slap tougher sanctions on DPRK  • Nigerian scholars laud strong Sino-Nigeria cooperation  • Making new borders within EU "very very bad development": Vienna mayor  • V4 countries reject EU criticism over attitude on migration  • News Analysis: Turkey must boost intel capability, revise foreign policy: analysts  
You are here: 　 Home

1st LD: Israeli house demolitions in West Bank run counter to idea of peace: senior UN official

Xinhua, February 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

A senior UN official said here Thursday that 2016 saw a surge in Israeli house demolitions in occupied West Bank, and these actions "run directly counter to the idea of peace."

Nickolay Mladenov, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, made the statement as he was briefing the UN Security Council on the current situation in the Middle East.

"Since the beginning of 2016, Israel has demolished, on average, 29 Palestinian-owned structures per week, three times the weekly average for 2015," Mladenov said."These actions run directly counter to the idea of peace."

During the past few weeks alone, Israeli authorities in Area C and East Jerusalem demolished 201 Palestinian-owned structures including 79 which were donor-funded, he noted. "As a result, 320 people were displaced." Endit