“We should ask ourselves: How many innocent lives must be sacrificed before the council deems it necessary to call for a cease-fire?” said the Algerian envoy to the United Nations.
By Julia Conley
As a United Nations agency halted aid deliveries in northern Gaza, where acute malnourishment is rampant among children, citing a “breakdown of social order” fueled by Israel’s bombardment of and blockade on the enclave, the United States for a third time on Tuesday vetoed a cease-fire resolution at the U.N. Security Council—saying it was an inopportune time to demand that Israel end its massacre of Palestinians.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the cease-fire resolution, proposed by Algeria, would “negatively impact” negotiations for a truce that are ongoing.
Amar Bendjama, Algeria’s ambassador to the U.N., said the U.S. ambassador’s lone vote against the resolution “implies an endorsement of the brutal violence and collective punishment inflicted upon” Palestinians in Gaza.
Thirteen countries supported the resolution, while the U.K.—which has veto power, like the U.S., China, France, and Russia—abstained from voting.
The vote marked the third time the U.S. has vetoed a cease-fire resolution at the U.N. Security Council (UNSC). Meanwhile, the Biden administration has approved weapons transfers to Israel without the oversight of the U.S. Congress since the assault began in October, and has vehemently defended the bombardment as being focused on defeating Hamas, even as Israel has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians including more than 11,500 children.
“We should ask ourselves: How many innocent lives must be sacrificed before the council deems it necessary to call for a cease-fire?” said Bendjama. “Palestinian lives matter. Each one of us decides where to stand in this tragic chapter of history.”
As the U.S. rejected the cease-fire resolution, Al Jazeera reported on the chaos that has erupted in northern Gaza as Israel has blocked aid trucks from reaching starving civilians there.
The World Food Program (WFP) said Tuesday it was pausing deliveries after crowds of desperate people overwhelmed aid workers.
As Al Jazeera reported, children collected flour that spilled from an aid truck in Gaza City, before Israeli forces began firing on the crowd.
“We want to feed our children just like everyone else,” one Palestinian man told Al Jazeera, “so we went to get some flour. But then we were shot at, shells were fired, and tanks advanced at us.”
The WFP and the U.N. Children’s Fund said Monday that starvation is particularly severe in northern Gaza, with 1 in 6 children under age two—more than 15%—acutely malnourished. An estimated 3% of children under two are experiencing a severe form of wasting—being underweight for their age and height.
In December, 15 agencies including the WFP warned that northern Gaza is at risk for a famine by May unless conditions significantly improve.
The United States’ veto of Algeria’s resolution on Tuesday, said Bendjama, should be understood as “approval of starvation as a means of war against hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.”
The U.S. proposed its own resolution calling for a “temporary cease-fire as soon as practicable,” and warning Israel not to conduct an expected ground operation in Rafah, where more than 1.5 million people—most of whom have been forcibly displaced from other parts of Gaza—are now sheltering.
The Permanent Mission of Liechtenstein to the U.N. called on the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) to take action to protect Palestinians.
Under Section A of Resolution 377A of the U.N. Charter, also known as “Uniting for Peace,” the UNGA can convene an emergency meeting and make recommendations for collective measures, if members of the UNSC can’t reach an agreement and fail to exercise their “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.”
Hossam Baghat, executive director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, suggested the U.S. veto should trigger “mass resignations of U.S. diplomats and public servants from the State Department and across the administration.”
Al Jazeera reported that Palestinians in Gaza expressed anger over the United States’ latest veto.
“There is a great deal of pessimism and frustration. Palestinians no longer trust the international community, as we have been hearing from locals here in Gaza,” correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum reported from Rafah. “During the Security Council meeting there have been more attacks on the ground here in Gaza. People here are completely frustrated.”
Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
Comments
13 responses to “As Israeli Forces Fire on Starving Palestinians, US Again Vetoes UN Cease-Fire Resolution”
Ok where is the worldwide movement to invade and take isn’treal govt and the most immoral army to prison?
Americans can do their part by not voting for ANY candidate who does NOT stand up against this insanity! There probably won’t be any candidates to vote for and if a candidate DOES stand up against this, he(she) will be roundly destroyed by groups like AIPAC! The USA blocks ceasefires in Gaza because the USA is controlled by Israel!
The UGLINESS and Zionist Shame from Tel Aviv will unfortunately come back to Jews everywhere as anti semitism. REAL anti semitism, not faux.
Thank you for mentioning the unmentionable.
And yes, nutjobs will unfortunately resort to violence against individual innocent Jews for the despicable crimes that collectively manifest from The Tribe, by the Jewish leaders of The Tribe, who conduct the political organization of a small minority that has reached monstrous proportions.
And then, as I’m sure you realize, Jews will say, “See, they kill us only because we are Jews.”
And the saga will continue, with the Jewish leaders corralling the herd of Jews, convincing them that the herd needs us leaders to protect the herd from the Goyim who at the drop of a hat will murder them all.
And Jews will continue to murder Palestinians because Palestinians are not Jews.
In other words, the Jewish leaders need pogroms in order to stay in power. For thousands of years they have been using The Tribe as an excellent business model to get rich and powerful and all the while willing to throw the average ignorant Jew under the bus for their own benefit.
The exceedingly problematic nature of the Jewish Tribe.
https://www.opednews.com/populum/page.php?f=The-Problematic-Nature-of-by-Sam-Barro-Antisemitism_Apartheid_Israel-Lobby_Israeli-Apartheid-210624-29.html#startcomments
A drama that has persisted for a couple thousand years is not about to end soon.
“For thousands of years they have been using The Tribe as an excellent business model to get rich and powerful and all the while willing to throw the average ignorant Jew under the bus for their own benefit. ”
This is not an exclusively Jewish trait.
Its standard operating procedure for gangsterism everywhere, from Chinese Triads and Sicilian mobsters through Meyer Lansky’s Jewish mob.
Oh…and let us not forget ye O£d Etonian/Oxbridge Bu££ingdon c£ubbers in the square mile City of £ondon, and their Ivy £eague off$hoot$ in Wa££ $t.
Joe Biden is a member of the Roman sect of exclusivist supremacists (one true church etc.) ….but he mixes quite inc£U$iv€£y with his c£a$$ cronies.
The United States of America is afraid of PEACE, is afraid of Social Justice, is afraid of feeding the Hungry, especially the Children who are starving in Palestine, is afraid of losing money from its arms deals, is afraid of Netanyahu, afraid of Zionism, afraid of show the world that Americans are not the only Human Beings, President Biden has become a coconspirator of Netanyahu genocidal impulses, USA is addicted to wars and the killing of innocent civilian of all ages in Palestine, killing by denying food to the hungry victims of a dirty war they cosponsor with the Zionists of Israel and the US Government has become zionist itself and is embarrassing the USA population facing the world.
And you, sir are afraid of Jews. You’re afraid of being called an antisemite. You’re afraid of identifying the Jewish Tribe as the source of all this tragedy. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Try not to forget that Zionism is a confluence of multiple forces and delusions dating back to Roman occupation of Palestine for straighforward imperial aims, mutating through Roman papal Crusader states defeated by the combined Semitic forces of Arab and Jew under the Kurd Saladin, re-emerging as British Israelism in the late 16th century from Puritanical Protestant literalist bible interpretations (the atavistic old testament primitive tribal vendetta thinKKKing attracting their imperia£ hubris) and joining with the Herzl fantasy blending pseudo-genetic racism to counter-imperialist nationalisms in the 19th century…before splicing into Churchill’s conversion of ye o£de wave ru£ing navy to oil from coal driving the Ottoman divisions between the Brits and French, before Wa$hington inherited the parcel via lend-£€a$e reverse taKKKeover of the European imperial ‘white man’s burden’…of Asia’s riches shipped through Suez. Hence the Yemeni finger on the jugular of the Bab-el-Mandeb…
When you think its simple and you have the answer…chances are you’ve jumped to a fa£$€ conclusion.
What’s with the stupid use of characters instead of letters?.
I hope her fat black ass and her spawn feel the repercussions of her vote.
May the zio degenerate savages be met with a fate tenfold what the Palestinians are met with.
Anyone who engages in the killing, starvation, depravity as this lot have forfeit the right to exist
LONG LIVE RESISTANCE
LONG LIVE PALESTINE
It is nice to see someone telling the truth about what is happening in the Middle East. We Love Trump Report finally banned me for telling the truth about this issue.
I want to see Linda Greenfield-Smith IN THE DOCK being tried for war crimes and genocide. What an abysmal excuse for a human being.
Christian/Jewish Zionists, war profiteers, energy companies, Wall Street and the Pentagon control the US govt. The media creates the narrative that distracts and misinforms the ignorant, decadent citizenry. Children are literally being starved and blown to bits by Israel with full US complicity and Biden calls Putin an SOB? VOTE CORNEL WEST 4 PRESIDENT