A group of researchers on the moon could have produced a more accurate and balanced report on Gaza than the one the UN produced this week, Israel’s ambassador Ron Prosor wrote Wednesday in a blistering letter to Security Council President Gerard Araud.
“This week, Israel’s children started their school year with the all-too-familiar sounds of sirens and explosions, as terrorists in Gaza fired six more rockets into their communities, Prosor wrote.
“While Israel’s schoolchildren were taking cover in bomb shelters, the UN released yet another biased report about Gaza. Apparently, the roar of rockets flying out of Gaza has not reached the deaf ears of the UN agencies that produced this report.”
What raised Prosor’s ire was a report, billed as the UN’s most comprehensive one to date on the Gaza Strip, that concluded that the region will not be “livable” by 2020 unless urgent action is taken to improve fundamental infrastructure such as health, electricity, water, sanitation, municipal and social services.
A report on the document on the UN website stated that “Gaza remains subject to severe restrictions on imports, exports and the movement of people, by land, air and sea, as a result of the blockade Israel imposed on the area for what it called security reasons after the Hamas group, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, ousted the Fatah movement in the Strip in 2007.”
Prosor said the officials who wrote the document “conveniently failed to mention that Hamas has brutally hijacked Gaza and deliberately targets Israeli civilians in relentless rocket attacks.”
The truth, he wrote, was “plain and simple: Hamas is responsible for the suffering in Gaza.”
Prosor said it was “high time” for the Security Council and other UN bodies to speak out loudly and clearly “against the violence that Hamas and other terrorists in Gaza continue to unleash on the children of our region, Israelis and Palestinians alike.”
Israel, Prosor concluded, will continue to hold Hamas responsible for all attacks emanating from Gaza, and will continue to “exercise its right to self-defense, as appropriate, and will take all necessary measures to protect its citizens.”