Escalating violence in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories is being fuelled by a growing sense of despair about the future, according to the UN's Middle East envoy.
"Palestinians and Israelis are killed and injured in near daily violence - including just hours before this briefing when another fatal shooting attack killed an Israeli in the West Bank," Tor Wennesland, the UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, told a meeting of the Security Council this morning.
"The lack of progress towards a political horizon that addresses the core issues driving the conflict has left a dangerous and volatile vacuum, filled by extremists on all sides," Mr Wennesland added.
The UN estimates 200 Palestinian and nearly 30 Israeli fatalities have occurred in the West Bank and Israel so far this year, surpassing 2022’s annual figures. It is the highest death toll since 2005.
Security council members took turns to condemn the attacks by Palestinian militants as well as Israeli settlers on civilians.
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the United States strongly condemned Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis, "including this morning’s shooting attack near Hebron, the August 19th attack outside Huwara that killed a father and son, and the August 5th attack in Tel Aviv that killed an Israeli police officer."
"We condemn the reckless launch of rockets by militants in the West Bank- a deeply troubling event. And strongly condemn the terror attack by settlers in Burqa on August 4th that killed a 19-year-old Palestinian," she added.
UN agencies recorded 591 settler-related incidents resulting in Palestinian casualties, property damage or both, the UK envoy told the council.
"That is the highest monthly average of incidents since records began," the UK’s Ambassador, James Kariuki said.
"The UK condemns the abhorrent terrorist attacks in Tel Aviv on Saturday 12 August, the West Bank town of Huwara on 19 August, and the South Hebron hills just today. These attacks have taken the lives of a further four innocent Israelis," he added.
Last week, an elementary school for Palestinian children aged between six and 12 was demolished in the West Bank days before the start of the school year, according to the UN.
Three schools have been demolished across the West Bank in the past 12 months, impacting 78 students, a spokesperson for the Secretary General, António Guterres, told reporters.
Diplomats at the Security council meeting cited the long-term stagnation of the Middle East peace process.
"We are a long distance apart from the sentiments prevailing when the Oslo Accord was signed 30 years ago," Mr Wennesland told council members.
The Oslo Accord was signed by the Israeli government and the Palestinian Liberation Organisation at the White House in Washington DC, in September 1993.
It was the first face-to-face meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders and marked the beginning of a peace process designed to pave to the way to a two-state solution to the conflict.
But thirty years on, amid spiralling violence, a political solution remains far out of reach.
Settlement expansion has accelerated this year, since the election of what is considered Israel’s most right wing and conservative government since the establishment of the state.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, recently approved plans for thousands of new settler homes in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.
The United Nations considers Israeli settlements in the occupied territories – the areas seized by Israel in the 1967 war – illegal.
However Israel accuses the UN of "bias."
Last month Israel’s President Isaac Herzog met UN Secretary General António Guterres at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Writing on social media, President Herzog said he had expressed his "deep concern at the hostility towards Israel in UN bodies."
