CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES, XVII LEGISLATURE, 699th MEETING, 26 OCTOBER 2016.

On 26 October 2016, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Mr Paolo Gentiloni Silveri, answered three parliamentary questions regarding the abstention of Italy on Decision 200 EX/25 on Occupied Palestine approved by the UNESCO Executive Board on 13 October 2016. The decision was adopted with 24 votes in favour, 6 against, and 26 abstentions. The text of the decision regrets ‘the Israeli refusal to implement previous UNESCO decisions concerning Jerusalem’ and deplores ‘the failure of Israel, the occupying Power, to cease the persistent excavations and works in East Jerusalem particularly in and around the Old City’. In section 25.1.A, the decision makes reference to several issues related to the ‘Al Aqṣa Mosque/Al-Ḥaram Al-Sharif’ condemning, inter alia, ‘escalating Israeli aggressions […] against the freedom of worship and Muslims’ access to their holy site’, as well as deploring ‘the continuous storming’ of the mosque ‘by Israeli right-wing extremists and uniformed forces’. In doing so, the resolution does not make reference to the Jewish ‘Temple Mount’. Mr Gentiloni started by illustrating the Italian position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict more generally:

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