Rabbi Deri Urges Emergency Security Council Session on Aleppo

YERUSHALAYIM
Israeli Minister of Interior Affairs Rabbi Aryeh Deri (Yaacov Cohen/Flash90)
Israeli Minister of Interior Affairs Rabbi Aryeh Deri (Yaacov Cohen/Flash90)

Interior Minister Rabbi Aryeh Deri said on Tuesday that Jews cannot stand by silently as atrocities are perpetrated in Syria, and urged an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council to intervene to stop the killings.

Following media reports of the massacre of civilians by Syrian army units, Rabbi Deri said he asked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to issue a call for U.N. action.

“Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust and the world was silent,” Deri said in an interview with Radio Kol Hai. “As Jews, it is forbidden for us to be silent in the faces of the horrors that are taking place in Syria now for nearly six years.”

The Prime Minister’s Office declined to comment on whether Netanyahu intended to ask for a Security Council session.

However, later on Tuesday, Russia’s U.N. ambassador announced that all military action in eastern Aleppo had ended and the Syrian government was in control of the former rebel-held area.

Vitaly Churkin told an emergency meeting of the Security Council that “according to the latest information that we received in the last hour, military actions in eastern Aleppo are over.”

As a result, he said, “there is no issue of some cessation of hostilities, or some special humanitarian operation.”

The Associated Press said it was not immediately able to confirm that the fighting had stopped or that all the rebels had surrendered.

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