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united nations security council
In 14-1 UN Security Council Vote, Lone US Veto Kills Gaza Cease-Fire Resolution
The U.S. government, said one human rights lawyer, "proves once again to the world that it is fully committed to the continuation of the genocide in Palestine."
Nov 20, 2024
The Biden administration faced fierce criticism on Wednesday after using its veto power at the United Nations Security Council to block a resolution demanding an immediate, unconditional, and permanent cease-fire in Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip.
The vetoed measure also called for all parties to implement a U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolution passed in June—which would lead to the release of all hostages—and to enable Gaza civilians' immediate access to basic services and humanitarian assistance.
Jess Peake, who directs the International and Comparative Law Program at the University of California, Los Angeles, condemned the U.S. decision as "absolutely unforgivable" while Nina Turner, a senior fellow at the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy, declared that "this is absurd."
Mai El-Sadany, executive director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington, D.C., called it "yet another shameful abuse of the UNSC veto by the U.S. to perpetuate a war that violates U.S. law and U.S. international legal commitments."
"Today's message is clear to the Israeli occupying power—you may continue your genocide... with complete impunity."
Human rights attorney Craig Mokhiber, who last year resigned as the New York director for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights over the United Nations' response to Gaza, said Wednesday that "the U.S. has just vetoed another cease-fire resolution in the U.N. Security Council, and, in doing so, proves once again to the world that it is fully committed to the continuation of the genocide in Palestine."
Mokhiber also called for action at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), where there is no U.S. veto power.
"Even as we seek accountability for Israeli perpetrators, we must also seek accountability for complicit U.S. actors," he said. "Israeli/U.S. impunity threatens the entire world. And the U.N. must now move to take concrete action in the UNGA."
The 14-1 vote at the UNSC marked the fourth time the United States has blocked a Gaza resolution since Israel began its retaliation for the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack. All five permanent members of the Security Council—the U.S., the United Kingdom, Russia, France, and China—have veto power. The other seats are filled on a rotating basis and lack that authority.
The 10 nonpermanent members—Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, South Korea, and Switzerland—were behind the push to pass this draft resolution. Those who supported it represent "the collective will" of the international community, Algerian Ambassador Amar Bendjama said after the vote, according toU.N. News.
"It is sad day for the Security Council, for the United Nations, and the international community as a whole," Bendjama said, stressing that it has been "five months since the adoption of Resolution 2735, five months during which the Security Council remained idle—remained hand-tied."
"Today's message is clear to the Israeli occupying power—you may continue your genocide... with complete impunity. In this chamber—you enjoy immunity," he added. "To the Palestinian people, another clear message—while the overwhelming majority of the world stands in solidarity with your plight, others remain indifferent to your suffering."
Israel faces a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its assault on Gaza, which as of Wednesday has killed at least 43,985 Palestinians, according to local officials. Another 104,092 people have been wounded, and most of the enclave's 2.3 million residents have been repeatedly displaced as Israeli forces have devastated civilian infrastructure.
U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood said Wednesday that "we made clear throughout negotiations we could not support an unconditional cease-fire that failed to release the hostages."
"This resolution abandoned that necessity," he argued. "For that reason, the United States could not support it."
The U.S. government has been widely accused of complicity in genocide for arming Israeli forces over the past 13 months—including by progressives in Congress. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday planned to force a vote on resolutions that would block American weapons sales to Israel on the grounds that they violate federal law.
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Barred From Israel, UN Chief Warns Middle East 'Fast Becoming an Inferno'
"This deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence must stop. Time is running out," said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
Oct 02, 2024
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Wednesday reiterated his urgent call for an end to violence and a diplomatic resolution in the Middle East shortly after Israel's foreign minister declared that the U.N. chief was barred from entering the country, a move that drew international condemnation.
"The raging fires in the Middle East are fast becoming an inferno," Guterres told a meeting of the U.N. Security Council, denouncing Israel's "relentless airstrikes across Lebanon," devastation of the Gaza Strip, and obstruction of a cease-fire agreement that could pull the region back from the brink of all-out war.
"Since last October, Israel has conducted in Gaza the most deadly and destructive military campaign in my years as secretary-general," said Guterres. "The suffering endured by the Palestinian people in Gaza is beyond imagination."
Guterres also condemned Hezbollah's "continued rocket and missile attacks on Israel" and Iran's retaliatory ballistic missile strikes against Israeli military targets. As he did so, Guterres pushed back on Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz's accusation that the U.N. chief did not repudiate the Iranian attack with his brief Tuesday statement.
"As I did in relation to the Iranian attack in April—and as should have been obvious yesterday in the context of the condemnation I expressed—I again strongly condemn yesterday's massive missile attack by Iran on Israel," Guterres said Wednesday. "It is high time to stop the sickening cycle of escalation after escalation that is leading the people of the Middle East straight over the cliff."
"Each escalation has served as a pretext for the next," he continued. "We must never lose sight of the tremendous toll that this growing conflict is taking on civilians. We cannot look away from systematic violations of international humanitarian law. This deadly cycle of tit-for-tat violence must stop. Time is running out."
Watch Guterres' full speech:
The Israeli foreign minister's designation of Guterres—a persistent and vocal advocate for peace—as "persona non grata" means the U.N. chief is barred from entering Israel as a diplomat, but Israeli journalist Yanir Cozin pointed out that he could get into the country with a non-diplomatic passport.
Amar Bendjama, Algeria's ambassador to the U.N., told the Security Council on Wednesday that the Israeli foreign minister's decision reflects the Israeli government's "clear disdain of the U.N. system and the entire international community."
"Our inaction has effectively granted Israel carte blanche to continue its rampage in Gaza, in the West Bank—carte blanche to escalate against Lebanon and pursue a bloody agenda of death and destruction," said Bendjama.
The emergency Security Council session came as the Israeli military confirmed that eight of its soldiers were killed Wednesday in ground fights with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"Hezbollah said its fighters were engaging Israeli forces inside Lebanon on Wednesday, reporting ground clashes for the first time since Israeli forces pushed over the border," Reuters reported. "Hezbollah said it had destroyed three Israeli Merkava tanks with rockets near the border town of Maroun El Ras."
Amid the spiraling violence across the region and worsening humanitarian disasters in Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk implored "all states, including members of the Security Council, to act resolutely to prevent a wider conflict in the Middle East with potentially devastating consequences for civilians."
"It is vital that they use their voices and influence to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table to end this," said Türk. "We appeal to reason. Peace must prevail."
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Palestinian Envoy Demands End to 'Most Documented Genocide in History'
"Peace will not be achieved at the expense of our rights but by upholding them," said Riyad Mansour. "That is the only path to peace. Let us finally collectively embark on it."
Jul 17, 2024
Ahead of the International Court of Justice's expected advisory opinion on legal consequences for Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, Palestine's permanent observer at the United Nations reminded other diplomats at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Wednesday that the slaughter of more than 38,000 people in Gaza has been broadcast for nine months—while Israel has claimed it is acting in self-defense and is targeting Hamas.
"What is happening in Gaza is going down as the most documented genocide in history," Riyad Mansour said. "When will the world denounce the crimes and stop tolerating their reoccurrence?"
In addition to the daily news of aerial and ground attacks on schools, homes, and places of worship in Gaza, Mansour pointed to Israeli soldiers' filming of their own attacks in the enclave, leaving no doubt that innocent civilians are being targeted.
Members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have "openly, brazenly, and repeatedly" shared its "crimes" on social media, said Mansour.
Since the IDF began its bombardment of Gaza in October with political and material support from the United States and other Western countries, videos taken by Israeli soldiers themselves have shown the controlled detonation of Israa University, a soldier blowing up a mosque, and another IDF fighter giving a thumbs up while driving a bulldozer into a destroyed car, accompanied by the caption, "I stopped counting how many neighborhoods I've erased."
In a segment produced by Al Jazeera in March, Sarah Leah Whitson of Democracy for the Arab World Now said that "there have been a remarkable number of videos posted by Israeli soldiers on social media, depicting themselves pillaging property, mocking the death and destruction that they are causing, and most egregiously, torturing, humiliating, and mocking detained Palestinian prisoners."
Meanwhile, human rights experts and aid groups have amplified images of the results of Israel's use of what Mansour called "the ultimate weapon": a near-total blockade on humanitarian relief. Last month, the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights documented the deaths from starvation of five-month-old Fayez Attaya and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi—two of more than two dozen children who have perished as U.N. experts have warned famine has taken hold in Gaza.
"Two million people who were subjected to a 17-year-old blockade are now confronted with a hermetic siege, dying of hunger and disease while food and medicine are available only meters away," said Mansour on Wednesday.
Palestinians including Bisan Owda, a journalist who won a Peabody Award for her coverage, have also documented their own forced displacement, the destruction of their homes, and the loss of loved ones.
Mansour on Wednesday asked the Security Council—which only voted in favor of a cease-fire in Gaza in June, after U.S. officials had vetoed several resolutions—why it has allowed Israel to violate international laws and norms.
"What is a rule that's not enforced? What do these rules mean anymore when for nine months Israel has bombed the homes, hospitals, schools—including those designated as U.N. shelters—and now people in tents as is the case in al-Mawasi?" he asked.
Mansour emphasized that Israeli soldiers have good reason to think they can film themselves committing potential war crimes.
"Everything in [Israel's] history tells it it will get away with it," said the envoy. "It is betting this time will be no exception. But, this time must be the exception, and change must start right now."
Mansour added that the ICJ's pending ruling on the occupation of Palestine "should serve as basis for our collective action in the days to come."
"As all your nations have refused to forego their rights, the Palestinian people will never accept to relinquish theirs," he said. "Peace will not be achieved at the expense of our rights but by upholding them. The right to life, to liberty, and to dignity. That is the only path to peace. Let us finally collectively embark on it."
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