The UN Security Council will hold a virtual public meeting Sunday to address the soaring violence between Israel and the Palestinians, diplomats said Thursday.
The United States, which had blocked an originally scheduled Friday session and proposed a meeting early next week, agreed to move the session — requested by Tunisia, Norway and China — to Sunday, the same sources said.
The United States said earlier Thursday it wanted to give time for diplomacy.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, asked about the scrapping of Friday’s session, had said the United States was not blocking a meeting but wanted to hold it later.
“We are open to and supportive of an open discussion at the United Nations,” Blinken told reporters in Washington.
“I think we’re looking at early next week. This, I hope, will give some time for the diplomacy to have some effect,” he said, before the meeting was set for Sunday.
The United States, Israel’s key ally, has defended the Jewish state’s deadly offensive in response to rocket fire from the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which controls the Gaza Strip.
But President Joe Biden’s administration has also voiced alarm over civilian casualties and earlier pushed Israel to hold off on evictions of Palestinians in Jerusalem, the immediate trigger for the flare-up.
Blinken spoke Wednesday to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, and a senior State Department official, Hady Amr, was en route Thursday to the region.
