Russia denounces Israel’s ‘inhumane plans’ for Gaza
The US is shamefully covering for Israel’s plan to make Gaza uninhabitable, Russia’s envoy to the UN Vassily Nebenzia said on Tuesday. he made the comments after the US delegation wielded its third veto of a resolution calling for a truce in the Palestinian enclave since October last year.
Proposed by Algeria, the resolution called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to allow the distribution of humanitarian aid. It was backed by 13 Security Council members, with the UK abstaining, but failed because the US voted no.
“Today we have witnessed another black page in the history of the UN Security Council,” Nebenzia said after the vote. “It was again written by the US delegation, which pursues the same goal – to cover for its closest Middle Eastern ally and play for time as much as possible, so that [Israel] can complete its inhumane plans for Gaza, namely to squeeze the Palestinians out of the sector and completely ‘cleanse’ the enclave, and directly sense, turning it into an uninhabited area.”
Much of Gaza’s infrastructure has been obliterated by months of Israeli air and artillery strikes and most of its two million residents have been displaced inside the enclave. Around 29,000 Palestinians have been killed so far, according to the local health authorities.
Several Israeli officials have teased the notion of leveling Gaza entirely and deporting all of its residents to Egypt as the only way to defeat Hamas and ensure Israel’s security. West Jerusalem declared war on the militant group after the October 7 raid on Israeli towns and settlements outside Gaza that claimed the lives of an estimated 1,200 Israelis and saw another 240 taken captive.
The main US objection to the Algerian proposal was that it demanded a ceasefire but did not condition it on the release of hostages.
“Demanding an immediate, unconditional ceasefire without an agreement requiring Hamas to release the hostages will not bring about a durable peace,” US envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council ahead of the vote. “Instead, it could extend the fighting between Hamas and Israel.”
“A ceasefire achieves one thing and one thing only – the survival of Hamas,” said Israeli envoy Gilad Erdan. “A ceasefire is a death sentence for many more Israelis and Gazans.”
Algerian ambassador Amar Bendjama had argued that a vote for the resolution was a vote for the “Palestinians’ right to life” while a vote against “implies an endorsement of the brutal violence and collective punishment inflicted upon them.”
Palestinian envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, told the council that the US veto was a message to Israel that “it can continue to get away with murder.”
The US has prepared its own draft resolution, calling for a “temporary” ceasefire and opposing a ground offensive by Israel against the town of Rafah in southern Gaza, according to a text seen by Reuters on Monday. Thomas-Greenfield does not plan to “rush” a vote on it, however.
According to the American text, the Security Council would “underscore its support for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as practicable, based on the formula of all hostages being released, and calls for lifting all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale.”
