The Palestinian delegation to the United Nations is working with European delegations to draft resolutions aimed at securing assistance for Palestinians, including UN commitments to protect property and sources of income in the West Bank, as well as condemnations of Israeli settlements, Ynet reported on Friday.
According to the report, the drafts were also expected to include an official condemnation of Israel's plans to advance construction in the E1 area, along with a demand that the UN formally declare it does not recognize Israel's presence in the West Bank. The proposed measures additionally called for a policy of differentiation between the West Bank and the rest of Israel. The drafts were still being negotiated between the Palestinian delegation and European Union member states.
Despite the Palestinian lobbying effort, the EU's 27 member states had failed to reach a consensus on supporting any of the proposed resolutions after a week of internal consultations. The Palestinian delegation was expected to consider bringing the drafts to a vote even without broad European backing, the report said.
Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said the Palestinian delegation was seeking to use the current political situation to challenge Israel at the international body. "They are trying to exploit the situation to challenge us from the UN podium," Danon said. "The Israeli delegation is working in close cooperation with our allies to confront this diplomatic attack." The Israeli mission was working behind the scenes to soften the wording of the proposed resolutions and reduce the number of countries that would support them, Ynet reported.
The diplomatic push comes amid heightened international scrutiny of Israeli settlement activity and settler violence in the West Bank. In October, the United Nations Aid Coordination Office, known as OCHA, recorded at least 160 attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank by extremist Israeli settlers during the first two weeks of the olive harvest. The report also said the IDF and Israeli border police protected settlers and on occasion participated in attacks against Palestinians and their property.
A separate report from a UN Commission of Inquiry on Israel documented an increase in Palestinian deaths in the West Bank, with nearly 500 Palestinians killed annually since 2022, the highest numbers recorded since the UN began collecting such data in 2005.
In a September briefing to the UN Security Council, the UN's acting Middle East peace envoy, Ramiz Alakbarov, said he "strongly condemns developments related to the E1 settlement plan, which would effectively sever the connection between the northern and southern West Bank and further isolate east Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank." The UN has also documented the humanitarian consequences of the war in Gaza, recording 1,431 Palestinians killed there in ongoing Israeli strikes following the ceasefire agreement in 2025.
Danon has repeatedly criticized what he and other Israeli officials describe as anti-Israel bias within the UN system. In a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post, he said the organization had become "a platform to incite against Israel," arguing that UN officials had taken an active role in promoting a one-sided narrative of the war.
At the same time, Danon said Israel needed to remain engaged with the organization rather than withdraw from it. "My approach is that we have to be in the room, and we don't just leave," he told the Post, arguing that Israel's presence was necessary to counter accusations and make its case to other member states. The Israeli mission is encouraging more Israelis to apply for professional and managerial positions within the UN, with Danon saying the Israeli voice needed to be heard "not only from the UN podium, but also in the corridors and meeting rooms where decisions are made."
