MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Tuesday, UNESCO's executive committee passed a resolution on Israel which qualified country's excavations, tunneling, works and projects in East Jerusalem "illegal under international law."
"In wake of the resolution, I have instructed Foreign Ministry Director General Yuval Rotem to deduct $1 million from the funds that Israel transfers to the UN. Israel will not sit by while the organization calls for the denial of our sovereignty in Jerusalem," Netanyahu said at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting as quoted in a statement published on his office's website.
In March, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that the country, which was expected by UN Secretariat to pay $11 million this year, would reduce payments to UN institutions by $2 million following a recent wave of anti-Israel resolutions adopted by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). These resolutions accuse Tel Aviv of "human rights violations in the occupied Syrian Golan" and the West Bank.
Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, partially occupied by Israel, and the Gaza Strip, and want Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories it took after the Six-Day War in 1967.
