Danny Danon
Danny DanonReuters

Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, responded on Wednesday to reports that the Palestinian Authority (PA) plans to seek full UN recognition ahead of an upcoming UN Security Council debate on the Middle East.

The PA’s “foreign minister”, Riyad al-Malki, declared earlier on Wednesday that the PA would "initiate an application to gain full state membership at the United Nations" in January.

Speaking on Voice of Palestine radio, Malki said he would file the application to upgrade the PA’s status from an observer state to a full-member state with the UN Security Council next month.

To secure full state membership, the PA would need support from at least nine out of the Security Council’s 15 member states.

The Security Council's periodic discussion on the Middle East is expected to take place on January 15. These discussions focus mostly on the Israeli-PA conflict.

In response to the PA initiative, Danon said that he was preparing to block the new initiative in full cooperation with the American delegation to the UN.

"Even as it continues to pay salaries to terrorists every month, encourage ‎violence and lead an unrelenting campaign of incitement against Israel, ‎the Palestinian Authority has the audacity to ask the Security Council to ‎recognize it as a full member state of the United Nations," said Danon.

" Instead of ‎focusing on building a better and more hopeful future for the Palestinians ‎and helping to ensure stability in the region, the Palestinian leadership is ‎continuing its destructive policies that have encouraged recent terror ‎attacks, including the murder of the four-day-old baby, Amiad Yisrael," he added.

The UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved the de facto recognition of the “state of Palestine” when it upgraded the PA’s UN observer status to non-member state in 2012.

Since that time, the PA has been waging a “diplomatic war” against Israel and has unilaterally joined international organizations.