The uncompromising stance being taken by Israel and the US is making it impossible to end the conflict in Gaza, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN has said.
Vassily Nebenzia made the comments during a UN Security Council session dedicated to the year-old Gaza crisis in the Middle East on Tuesday.
The attack on Israel by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7 last year, in which some 1,200 Israelis were killed and 250 taken hostage, was “a tragedy” but it is being used to justify “the merciless and inhumane mass collective punishment of the Palestinians,” the envoy said.
The people of Gaza “are facing an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe unseen since World War Two,” he stressed.
Nebenzia noted that due to Israel’s air and ground campaign, almost 42,000 people – mainly women and children – have been killed in Gaza in the past year, and the number of wounded and missing is approaching 100,000, while another 2 million Palestinians are internally displaced.
"This is the result of the stubbornness of the Israeli leadership and its patronage by the American allies... who do not allow the Security Council to stop this vicious cycle of violence,” Nebenzia insisted.
Washington vetoed several UNSC resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza before eventually allowing the document to pass in late March 2024. According to a report by the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs earlier this week, the US has provided Israel with a record $17.9 billion in military aid over the past year. A major part of American deliveries were munitions, including artillery shells and 2,000-pound (907kg) bombs, according to the report.
The “catastrophic situation” in Gaza should only be resolved through diplomatic means with the participation of all countries in the Middle East and major international players, Nebenzia said.
“Our common goal is to ensure the implementation of the decisions of the Security Council and the UN General Assembly, to stop the bloodshed that risks engulfing the entire Middle East,” he stated.
The members of the UNSC must also “guarantee the implementation of the Palestinians’ legitimate right to self-determination,” which would allow them to create a viable state within the 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital, the Russian envoy added.