After being granted full membership at the United Nations’ cultural agency UNESCO, the Palestinian Authority is seeking to become a member of the World Health Organization and of 15 smaller UN agencies. The forum of eight senior Israeli government ministers will convene later on Tuesday to discuss Israel’s response to the matter.

A source at the foreign ministry said that the Palestinian Health Minister, Fathi Abu Moghli, was sent last week by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to meet with the chief of the WHO office in the West Bank, and updated him on the Palestinians’ intention to apply for full membership in the organization.

Meanwhile, Ibrahim Khraishi, the top Palestinian envoy at the UN in Geneva, told the Associated Press on Tuesday about the Palestinian bid to become members of additional organizations.

“Now we are studying when we are going to move for full membership on the other UN agencies,” Khraishi said. “It’s our target for (us to join) the international organizations and the UN agencies.”

A foreign ministry source said that some of the bodies the Palestinians seek to join are The UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization, the International Telecommunication Union, The International Labor Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

UNESCO is the first UN agency that the Palestinians sought to join as a full member since Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas applied for full membership in the United Nations in September.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

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