BICOM

The UN Security Council (UNSC) will discuss yesterday’s missile attack on Israel after international condemnation of the attacks against Israeli civilians.

An urgent meeting of the UNSC was requested by the US and is scheduled to take place later today.

US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said “the Security Council should be outraged and respond to this latest bout of violence directed at innocent Israeli civilians, and the Palestinian leadership needs to be held accountable for what they’re allowing to happen in Gaza”.

UK Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt issued a statement on Twitter saying: “[I] condemn the rocket fire from #Gaza into Israel today,” adding that “indiscriminate attacks against civilians, especially those that risk killing or injuring children, are completely unacceptable under any circumstances”.

US President Donald Trump’s special envoy for international negotiations, Jason Greenblatt, said: “Reprehensible – mortars fired from Gaza at a kindergarten and community in Israel! Hamas has failed – all it can offer is terror. Palestinians in Gaza need real leaders to work on Gaza’s real problems with its water, its economy and so much more.”

EU Ambassador to Israel Emanuele Giaufret also said that “indiscriminate attacks are totally unacceptable and to be condemned unreservedly”.

UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov said he was “deeply concerned by the indiscriminate firing of rockets by Palestinian militants from Gaza”.

Mladenov also noted that the missile attacks “undermine the serious efforts by the international community to improve the situation in Gaza”. In January, Israel presented a $1bn plan to repair Gaza’s failing infrastructure to international donors in a bid to alleviate the humanitarian situation inside the Gaza Strip.