UN Security Council meets over Israeli flotilla raid

AFP - The United Nations Security Council Monday began an emergency session to discuss the deadly Israeli raid on a flotilla of ships seeking to take aid to the Gaza Strip.
  
Israel is facing a wave of international condemnation over the raid, in which at least nine people were killed.
  
Yahya Mahmassani, representing the Arab group at the UN, said there were a number of issues that were important for Council members to address.
  
"We want a strong condemnation because this happened in international waters, two: we want to lift the blockade on Gaza, to allow all the food and material that was sent to Gaza to arrive and third: Israel should abide by international law and its commitment under international law," he told AFP.
  
An international investigation into the incident was also needed, he said.
  
The talks were requested by Lebanon, which holds the council's rotating presidency until 0400 GMT on Tuesday.
  
The country's Prime Minister Saad Hariri "asked the Lebanese delegation at the UN to call for an emergency meeting over what happened today," a Lebanese official told AFP earlier.
  
The Palestinian permanent representative to the world body, Riyad Mansour, said there was hope that "at the end of the day... the Security Council will have a decisive outcome, a reaction to bring Israel into account at the same level of that crime that has been committed in the high seas."
 

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