World Leaders Condemn US Vetoing Gaza Truce As Clashes Kill More People
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
NEW YORK/JERUSALEM/GAZA (Worthy News) – World leaders and United Nations officials condemned the United States on Saturday for vetoing a U.N. resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza that would have pressured Israel to end its declared intention to destroy Hamas, which it regards as a terrorist organization.
Israel has continued its retaliatory strikes since Hamas killed some 1,200 people in Israel and took 240 hostages on October 7 in the worst recorded atrocity against Jews since the Holocaust, also known as the Shoah.
However, the Hamas-run ministry says that more than 17,400 Palestinians have been killed in the attacks, though those figures have been complex to verify independently.
A resolution on the pause in hostilities failed to pass on Friday at the U.N. Security Council after the United States vetoed the proposal and Britain abstained.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the United States’ veto made it complicit in what he described as “war crimes” against Palestinians.
Abbas also said he held the U.S. responsible “for the bloodshed of Palestinian children, women and the elderly in the Gaza Strip,” a statement released by the presidency said.
The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres joined in the outrage, claiming that more than 60 percent of Gaza’s housing has “reportedly been destroyed or damaged” and 85 percent of the population “has been forced” from their homes.
TURKEY REACTS ANGRILY
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, said the U.N. Security Council must be reformed following the U.S. vetoing a ceasefire proposal for Gaza despite the 15-member council voting 13-1 for the resolution.
“The United Nations Security Council demand for a ceasefire is rejected only by U.S. veto. Is this justice?” Erdoğan said at an apparent human rights conference in Istanbul. The U.N. Security Council needs to be reformed,” he added.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian warned of the threat of an “uncontrollable explosion” of the situation in the Middle East, while the United Arabic Emirates expressed similar sentiments.
China’s Permanent Representative to the U.N., Zhang Jun, told the Council that “Condoning the continuation of fighting while claiming to care about the lives and safety of people in Gaza is self-contradictory.”
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy said: “Our colleagues from the USA have literally before our eyes issued a death sentence to thousands if not tens of thousands more civilians in Palestine and Israel.”
France was equally critical, with its ambassador to the U.N. saying: “Unfortunately, once again, this council has failed with a lack of unity, and by refusing to commit to negotiations, the crisis in Gaza is getting worse, and the council is not completing its mandate under the charter.”
Agnes Callamard, advocacy group Amnesty International’s secretary general, said the US veto “displays a callous disregard for civilian suffering in the face of a staggering death toll.” Avril Benoit, executive director of Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) USA agreed saying: “By vetoing this resolution, the U.S. stands alone in casting its vote against humanity.”
US DEFENDS VETO
Yet the deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Robert Wood, defended the veto, telling the council that the draft resolution was a rushed, imbalanced text “that was divorced from reality, that would not move the needle forward on the ground in any concrete way.” Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward said her country abstained because the resolution had no condemnation of Hamas.
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan argued that “A ceasefire will be possible only with the return of all the hostages and the destruction of Hamas.”
He spoke as news emerged that Sahar Baruch, 25, one of the estimated 240 hostages taken during the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel, was killed in Hamas captivity.
Hamas released a video earlier depicting Baruch with his hair shaven. The video then showed his battered body covered in blood.
Hamas has claimed Baruch’s death was caused by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Previously, the IDF said two Israeli soldiers had been seriously wounded in a failed hostage rescue mission on Friday. The IDF reportedly puts the blame solely on Hamas for Baruch’s death.
However, Hamas strongly condemned the U.S. veto, saying it considers Washington’s move “unethical and inhumane.”
The group did not address its perceived inhumane behavior, including on October 7 when it raped women at gunpoint and killed innocent civilians, including babies, toddlers, and the elderly, sparking the Israeli response.
ETHNIC CLEANSING ALLEGATIONS
“The U.S. obstruction of the issuance of a ceasefire resolution is a direct participation with the occupation in killing our people and committing more massacres and ethnic cleansing,” Izzat al-Risheq, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, added in a statement.
Naftali Bennett, a former Israeli prime minister and an influential politician, noted that Hamas’ leadership abandoned the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
“While their people languish in poverty and are treated as human shields, the leaders of Hamas live billionaire lifestyles,” he said.
It follows recent allegations that the group’s three top leaders alone are worth a staggering total of $11 billion and enjoy a life of luxury in the sanctuary of the emirate of Qatar.
“The son of one of Hamas” leaders, Ismall Hanyeh, is buying expensive jewelry in Qatar shops while his brothers and sisters are suffering. The son of one of Israel’s leaders, Gadi Eisenkot, fought and fell for the defense of his brothers and sisters,” he wrote on social media.
There were no signs the war would end Saturday, with reports of clashes beyond Gaza as well, including in the West Bank, the other Palestinian enclave.
Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man in the West Bank on Saturday, and another died from his wounds sustained in an Israeli raid the day before, Palestinian officials said.
YOUNG MAN KILLED
The Palestinian health ministry claimed that the 25-year-old man who died from his wounds had been shot during an arrest raid in the Faraa refugee camp on Friday.
Seven had been killed in this raid, including a local commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, it said.
The circumstances were not immediately clear, however, on Saturday’s fatal shooting of a 25-year-old Palestinian near the city of Hebron.
The Israeli military did not immediately react to the reports.
A total of 274 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the Israel-Hamas war two months ago.
Most were killed during shootouts that the Israeli military says began during operations to arrest suspected terrorists.
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