Hezbollah Calls U.N. Weak After Apartheid Report Withdrawn

BEIRUT (Reuters/Hamodia) —

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah denounced the United Nations as weak after the withdrawal of a report accusing Israel of imposing an “apartheid regime” on Palestinians.

A senior U.N. official resigned on Friday after the secretary-general asked her to remove the report, published by the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), from the internet.

Nasrallah said in a speech broadcast over the weekend that the incident served as a reminder of the “truth of this organization, that it’s weak … and it succumbs to the will of the United States and Israel.”

The United States, an ally of Israel, had said it was outraged and demanded the report be withdrawn.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said on Friday that Rima Khalaf’s resignation was appropriate and Israel’s U.N. ambassador Danny Danon said it was “long overdue.”

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the report was published without consultation with the U.N. secretariat.

“This is not about content, this is about process,” Dujarric told reporters in New York on Friday.

“The secretary-general cannot accept that an under-secretary general or any other senior U.N. official that reports to him would authorize the publication under the U.N. name, under the U.N. logo, without consulting the competent departments and even himself,” he said.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas awarded his office’s highest honor to Khalaf.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa said Sunday that Abbas informed Khalaf by phone that she would receive the Palestine Medal of the Highest Honor in recognition of her “courage and support” for the Palestinian people.

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