UNITED NATIONS // Violence and incitement, the expansion of Israeli settlements on disputed land and the Palestinian Authority's failure to control Gaza are blocking progress towards peace in the Middle East a senior U.N. official said on Thursday.
The eagerly-awaited report by the so-called "quartet" of sponsors of the Middle East peace process identifies continuing and unchecked violence, acts of terrorism and provocation as the main threats to a negotiated peace between Israel and Palestine. In particular, the report calls on Israel to stop building settlements on Palestinian territory.
The report, which is due to be released on Friday, comes as it emerged that a Palestinian stabbed a 13-year-old Israeli girl to death in her own bedroom in the West Bank on Thursday.
The quartet consists of envoys from the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations, who are tasked with forging an agreement that permits the Palestinians to have an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem- all of them areas captured by Israel in 1967.
Israel has been expanding housing settlements on land which the Palestinians say should belong to them, despite the UN and most countries regarding them as illegal. It is the settlement issue which has delayed the supposedly hard-hitting report for months.
After briefing the UN security council, Nickolay Mladenov, the UN representative, said, "The main objective of this report is not about assigning blame. It focuses on the major threats to achieving a negotiated peace and offers recommendations on the way forward. The Quartet has outlined a reasonable set of steps that if implemented sincerely and resolutely, with support from the international community, could set Israelis and Palestinians firmly along a navigable course towards establishing a comprehensive peace."
He added, "These negative trends can and must be urgently reversed to advance the two state solution on the ground. The report contains recommendations to both sides ... in relation to violence, incitement to violence, Israeli settlement construction and related policies, Palestinian unity and institution building."
The last round of peace talks broke down in April 2014 and violence between Israel and Palestine has surged in recent months, costing the lives of 211 Palestinians, 33 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese.
The Palestinian Authority headed by President Mahmoud Abbas is based in the West Bank, while Islamist group Hamas has been in control of Gaza since 2007.
* Reuters
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