Palestinian president calls for UN deadline on Israeli occupation

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has accused Israel of failing to negotiate in good faith, saying any return to negotiations would be "naive at best" and called on the Security Council to press for a specific deadline to end Israeli occupation.

“It is impossible and I repeat - it is impossible - to return to the cycle of negotiations that failed to deal with the substance of the matter and the fundamental question,” Mr Abbas said at the annual session of the General Assembly, reading from a prepared text, but visibly enraged. “The time has come to end this settlement occupation.”

His speech, however, was short on details. He did not offer his own deadline for an Israeli withdrawal, as some had expected, nor did he say anything about joining the International Criminal Court, which his aides have repeatedly said he is prepared to do. He only hinted that he would seek accountability for alleged war crimes against Palestinians during the latest war with Israel.

“In the name of Palestine and its people, I affirm here today: We will not forget and we will not forgive, and we will not allow war criminals to escape punishment,” Mr Abbas said in his 30-minute address.

Mr Abbas has been threatening to join the international court ever since Palestine won upgraded status as a nonmember observer state of the United Nations in November 2012, which permits membership in many related world bodies. Israel is worried in particular about Palestinian membership in the international court because it could open the way for the prosecution of Israeli political and military leaders for building settlements and other policies related to its decades-old occupation.

Israel and the United States have expressed strong opposition to Palestinian membership in the court and have asserted that talks between the two sides remain the best way to achieve a two-state solution to the protracted conflict. The conspicuous absence of a direct reference to the international court in Mr Abbas' speech suggested that he was still reluctant to take that step.

The Palestinian president has been seeking to bolster his authority in the aftermath of the 50-day Gaza war this summer between Israel and Hamas, the militant group that, unlike Mr Abbas, refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist.

Despite the devastation in Gaza from that war, Hamas’ popularity as a force that will stand up to Israel has increased among Palestinians. The fighting this summer damaged more than 100 UN schools and hospitals, which the Israeli authorities said were near Hamas holdouts. The United Nations said 2,150 Palestinians, including 500 children, were killed. On the Israeli side, 67 soldiers and six civilians, including one child, were killed.

A fragile cease-fire agreement, negotiated in Cairo, has held for a month, and the two sides last week agreed to let reconstruction materials move into Gaza, monitored by the United Nations to ensure that they are destined for civilian projects. Israel has repeatedly said that cement and steel are diverted by Hamas to build tunnels to attack Israel.

Israel’s demand that Gaza be demilitarized is among the topics left for future cease-fire negotiations. Palestinian diplomats have been pushing their Arab peers at the United Nations to propose a Security Council resolution that would establish a time frame for ending the Israeli occupation and call for talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority to demarcate the borders of two independent states. No resolution has yet been proposed, and the United States has said nothing about whether it would support such a measure. US diplomats have said they want both sides to return to negotiations.

Mr Abbas described the Israeli occupation as “an abhorrent form of state terrorism and a breeding ground for incitement, tension and hatred.”