Resuming emergency session, UN Assembly takes up draft on Jenin fact-finding

The United Nations General Assembly today resumed its tenth emergency special session on the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory to consider a draft resolution, sponsored by the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), concerning Israel's refusal to cooperate with a UN fact-finding mission to the Jenin refugee camp.

Over 30 speakers were slated to take part in the debate, held under the agenda item entitled, “Illegal Israeli actions in Occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The draft text was introduced this morning by Ambassador Dumisani Shadrack Kumalo of South Africa on behalf of NAM. He noted that the Security Council had yet to officially react to that Israeli rejection, and called on the Member States to support the draft, sending the message that the Assembly was willing to take a stand on the issue of Palestine.

The tenth emergency session was originally convened in 1997 after the Security Council in two separate meetings failed to adopt a draft resolution on a new Israeli settlement south of East Jerusalem. Using the "Uniting for Peace" formula, a special emergency session of the General Assembly was convened in April and again in July and November of 1997. It also resumed in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001.