UN Secretary-General welcomes Israel's vote in favour of Gaza pullout by UN News / BBC News 12:40pm 23rd Oct, 2004   27 October 2004    United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today welcomed Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel on what the UN leader described as the historic vote in the Knesset, which produced a clear majority in favour of the Israeli leader's initiative to withdraw from Gaza and parts of the northern West Bank.    "The Secretary-General remains supportive of a full and complete Israeli withdrawal, leading to the end of the occupation of the Gaza Strip," a spokesman for Mr. Annan said in a statement. He "very much hopes that the Israeli withdrawal will have the effect of reviving peace efforts, which must be based on the Road Map," the statement added, referring to the plan sponsored by the Quartet of the UN, European Union, Russian Federation and United States.    The statement also said withdrawal "could be an important step towards a process that will eventually result in the end of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, paving the way for the establishment of a sovereign, democratic, viable and contiguous Palestinian state living side by side in peace with a secure Israel."    22 October, 2004    Mid-East 'drifting towards chaos'. (BBC News)    A senior UN official has warned that no solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be found without international involvement. In a briefing to the Security Council, Kieran Prendergast spoke of "a palpable sense of drift and foreboding... towards chaos". He urged both sides to abandon violence and engage in negotiation. And he warned that there would be no peaceful agreement if both sides were left to themselves.    Since the start of the latest intifada, or uprising, in September 2000, some 3,839 Palestinians and 979 Israelis had been killed, said Mr Prendergast, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs. And an estimated 36,000 Palestinians and 6,297 Israelis had been wounded. These "staggering" figures, he said, demanded action. "Are we going to go on like this? Is there not a better way?" he asked.    Neither side, he said, was fulfilling its obligations under the international peace plan known as the road map. "Even to speak in terms of a peace process seems to put one at a distance from the present reality," he said.    Violence in and around the Gaza Strip has escalated sharply during the past month after Israel launched a major operation in response to a rocket attack from Gaza which killed two Israeli children. Mr Prendergast said the Palestinian Authority had to make all efforts to stop such attacks against Israeli citizens. He also called on the Israelis to refrain from the disproportionate use of force.    During the two week long military operation, he said, 114 Palestinians were killed in northern Gaza, many of them civilians, including children. The conflict is costing lives on both sides    Israel's restrictions on movement in the occupied territories, he said, has affected the United Nations' humanitarian agency for the Palestinians, known as UNWRA. The agency said in a report released on Friday that Israel's 17-day offensive in the northern Gaza strip had left 700 homeless and caused more than $3m in property damage. Israel says it destroys buildings which hide tunnels that are used to smuggle weapons into Gaza.    Mr Prendergast said that pessimism about peace prospects was coupled with frustration, because the two state solution enjoyed strong support among both the Israeli and the Palestinian public.
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