ceasefire

UN Tells Israel: Cease Fire; NYT Says: If You Want

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Original article by DAVE LINDORFF republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The editorial boards of the nation’s major media organizations must have been frantic last week.

Used to reporting on US foreign policy, wars and arms exports so as to portray the United States as a benevolent, law-abiding and democracy-defending nation, they were confronted on March 25 with a real challenge dealing with Israel and Gaza. No sooner did the Biden administration, for the first time, abstain and thus allow passage of a United Nations Security Council resolution that was not just critical of Israel, but demanded a ceasefire in Gaza, than US officials began declaring that the resolution that they allowed to pass was really meaningless.

It was “nonbinding,” they said.

The New York Times (3/25/24) reported that US’s UN Ambassdor “Thomas-Greenfield called the resolution ‘nonbinding’”—and let no one contradict her.

That was enough for the New York Times (3/25/24), which produced the most one-sided report on the decision. That article focused initially on how Resolution 2728 (which followed three resolutions that the US had vetoed, and a fourth that was so watered down that China and Russia vetoed it instead) had led to a diplomatic dust-up with the Israeli government: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled a planned visit to Washington by a high-level Israeli delegation to discuss Israel’s planned invasion of Rafah and the future of Gaza and the West Bank.

The Times quoted Richard Gowan, a UN expert at the International Crisis Group: “The abstention is a not-too-coded hint to Netanyahu to rein in operations, above all over Rafah.”

Noting that “Security Council resolutions are considered to be international law,” Times reporters Farnaz Fassihi, Aaron Boxerman and Thomas Fuller wrote, “While the Council has no means of enforcing the resolution, it could impose punitive measures, such as sanctions, on Israel, so long as member states agreed.”

This was nevertheless followed by a quote from Washington’s UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, who abstained from the otherwise unanimous 14–0 vote of the rest of the Security Council, characterizing the resolution as “nonbinding.”

The Times offered no comment from any international law scholars, foreign or US, to rebut or even discuss that claim. Such an expert might have pointed to the unequivocal language of Article 25 of the UN Charter: “The members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.”

If the US offered its claim that this language only applies to resolutions explicitly referencing the UN Charter’s Chapter VII, dealing with “threats to the peace,” an international law expert (EJIL: Talk!, 1/9/17) might note that the International Court of Justice stated in 1971, “It is not possible to find in the Charter any support for this view.”

‘Creates obligations’

The Washington Post (3/26/24) quoted an international law expert to note that the resolution “creates obligations for Israel and Hamas.”

The Washington Post (3/26/24), though like the Times a firm defender of Washington’s foreign policy consensus, did marginally better. While the Times didn’t mention Britain or France, both major US NATO allies, in its piece on the Security Council vote, the Post noted that the four other veto powers—Britain and France, as well as China and Russia—had all voted in favor of the resolution, along with all 10 elected temporary members of the Council.

The Post also cited one international law legal expert, Donald Rothwell, of the Australian National University, who said the “even-handed” resolution “creates obligations for Israel and Hamas.”

While that quote sounds like the resolution is binding, the Post went on to cite Gowan as saying, “I think it’s pretty clear that if Israel does not comply with the resolution, the Biden administration is not going to allow the Security Council members to impose sanctions or other penalties on Israel.”

The Post (3/25/24) actually ran a stronger, more straightforward piece a day earlier, when it covered the initial vote using an AP story. AP did a fairer job discussing the fraught issue of whether or not the resolution was binding on the warring parties, Israel and Hamas (as well as the nations arming them).

That earlier AP piece, by journalist Edith M. Lederer, quoted US National Security spokesperson John Kirby as explaining that they decided not to veto the resolution because it “does fairly reflect our view that a ceasefire and the release of hostages come together.”

Because of the cutbacks to in-house reporting on national and international news  in most of the nation’s major news organizations, most Americans who get their news from television and their local papers end up getting dispatches—often edited for space—from the New York Times, Washington Post or AP wire stories. (The Wall Street Journal, for example, ran the same AP report as the Post.)

‘A demand is a decision’

CNN (3/27/24) quoted US officials claiming the resolution was nonbinding—and noted that “international legal scholars” disagree.

In TV news, CNN (3/27/24) had some of the strongest reporting on the debate over whether the resolution was binding. The news channel said straight out, “While the UN says the latest resolution is nonbinding, experts differ on whether that is the case.”

It went on to say:

After the resolution passed, US officials went to great lengths to say that the resolution isn’t binding. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller repeatedly said during a news conference that the resolution is nonbinding, before conceding that the technical details of are for international lawyers to determine. Similarly, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby and US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield separately insisted that the resolution is nonbinding.

Those US positions were challenged by China’s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun, who “countered that such resolutions are indeed binding,” and by UN spokesperson Farhan Haq, who said Security Council resolutions are international law, and “so to that extent they are as binding as international law is.”

CNN quoted Maya Ungar, another International Crisis Group analyst:

The US—ascribing to a legal tradition that takes a narrower interpretation—argues that without the use of the word “decides” or evocation of Chapter VII within the text, the resolution is nonbinding…. Other member states and international legal scholars are arguing that there is legal precedence to the idea that a demand is implicitly a decision of the Council.

‘A rhetorical feint’

According to the Guardian (3/26/24), the US’s “nonbinding” interpretation “put the US at odds with other member states, international legal scholars and the UN itself.”

To get a sense of how one-sided or at best cautious the US domestic coverage of this critically urgent story is, consider how it was covered in Britain or Spain, two US allies in NATO.

The British Guardian (3/26/24), which also publishes a US edition, ran with the headline: “Biden Administration’s Gaza Strategy Panned as ‘Mess’ Amid Clashing Goals.” The story began:

The Biden administration’s policy on Gaza has been widely criticized as being in disarray as the defense secretary described the situation as a “humanitarian catastrophe” the day after the State Department declared Israel to be in compliance with international humanitarian law.

Washington was also on the defensive on Tuesday over its claim that a UN security Council ceasefire resolution on which it abstained was nonbinding, an interpretation that put the US at odds with other member states, international legal scholars and the UN itself.

But the real contrast is with the Spanish newspaper El País (3/29/24), which bluntly headlined its story “US Sparks Controversy at the UN With Claim That Gaza Ceasefire Resolution Is ‘Nonbinding.’” Not mincing words, the reporters wrote:

By abstaining in the vote on the UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the United States on Monday sparked not only the anger of Israel, which had asked it to veto the text, but also a sweeping legal and diplomatic controversy due to its claims that the resolution—the first to be passed since the start of the Gaza war—was “nonbinding.” For Washington, it was a rhetorical feint aimed at making the public blow to its great ally in the Middle East less obvious.

El País (3/29/24) quoted the relevant language from the UN Charter: “The members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.”

After quoting Thompson-Greenfield saying it was a “nonbinding resolution,” and Kirby saying dismissively, “There is no impact at all on Israel,” they wrote,

These claims hit the UN Security Council—the highest executive body of the UN in charge of ensuring world peace and security—like a torpedo. Were the Council’s resolutions binding or not? Our was it that some resolutions were binding and others were not?

The reporters answered their own rhetorical question:

Diplomatic representatives and legal experts came out in force to refute Washington’s claim. UN Secretary-General António Guterres made his opinion clear: the resolutions are binding. Indeed, this is stated in Article 25 of the UN Charter: “The members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.” Several representatives of the Security Council, led by Mozambique and Sierra Leone, pointed to case law to support this argument. The two African diplomats, both with legal training, said that the Gaza ceasefire resolution is binding, regardless of whether one of the five permanent members of the Council abstains from the vote, as was the case of the US. The diplomats highlighted that in 1971, the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) established that all resolutions of the UN Security Council are legally binding. The Algerian ambassador to the UN summed it up even more categorically: “Security Council resolutions are binding. Not almost, not partly, not maybe.”

Unlike most most US news organizations, El País went to an expert, in this instance seeking out Adil Haque, a professor of international law at Rutgers University, where he is a professor, and also executive editor of the law journal Just Security. Haque, they wrote, “has no doubts that the resolution is binding.” He explains in the article:

According to the UN Charter, all decisions of the Security Council are binding on all member states. The International Court of Justice has ruled that a resolution need not mention Chapter VII of the Charter [action in case of threats to the peace, breaches of the peace or acts of aggression], refer to international peace and security, or use the word “decides” to make it binding. Any resolution that uses “mandatory language” creates obligations, and that includes the term “demands” used in the resolution on Gaza.” He adds, “For now, it does not seem that the US has a coherent legal argument.”

It should be noted that the New York Times, when there is a dispute regarding a document, typically runs a copy of the document in question—or, if it is too long, the relevant portion of it. In the case of Resolution 2728, which even counting its headline only runs 263 words, that would have not been a hard call. Despite the disagreement between the US and most of the Council over the wording of the ceasefire resolution, the Times chose not to run or even excerpt it.

Original article by DAVE LINDORFF republished from FAIR under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Continue ReadingUN Tells Israel: Cease Fire; NYT Says: If You Want

Demanding ‘Immediate Removal’ of Netanyahu, Tens of Thousands Protest in Israel

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Original article by OLIVIA ROSANE republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Demonstrators sit on the main road and block it at a demonstration for a hostage deal near the Knesset, on March 31, 2024, in Jerusalem, Israel. 
(Photo: Yahel Gazit/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

“Our country is being led by a gang of nut cases that jeopardize not only our existence but our well-being,” one demonstrator said.

Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Saturday and Sunday, in what were described as the largest protests in the country since Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel and Israel’s war on Gaza that followed.

Participants carried signs reading, “Hostage deal now,” and arguing for Netanyahu’s “immediate removal,” according toThe New York Times. They demanded early elections and a cease-fire deal that would see the remaining hostages freed from Gaza, calls that came as indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel resumed in Egypt on Sunday.

“Our country is being led by a gang of nut cases that jeopardize not only our existence but our well-being,” 70-year-old protester Shaul Dwek told The Washington Post. “This is not the way we grew up and these are not the values that we hold.”

“After six months, it seems like the government understands that Bibi Netanyahu is an obstacle.”

Netanyahu faced months of internal protests before the October 7 attacks over his government’s planned overhaul of the judiciary to weaken the oversight powers of the Supreme Court. However, protests have been muted since Hamas killed 1,139 people on October 7 and took around 250 hostages into Gaza. Since then, Israel and the Netanyahu government have faced global protests and credible accusations of genocide over the war they launched in retaliation, which has killed nearly 33,000 people and subjected the survivors to famine and mass displacement.

In Israel, the war itself is still popular, according to The Associated Press. However, protesters are concerned about Netanyahu’s personal corruption and the degree to which he is prioritizing the release of hostages. While around half were released during a temporary cease-fire and prisoner exchange in 2023, the Israeli government estimates that around 130 are still being held in Gaza, including 34 who have died, The Guardian reported.

“The people of Israel were deep in sorrow and pain after 7 October, that is why it took so long, but when they understood there is no other option, this government is not functioning and is hurting us economically, diplomatically, in our security and in our values […] that is why people are out,” Naama Lazimi, a Labor party member of the Knesset who attended Sunday’s protest, said, as The Guardian reported.

The weekend’s protests were organized by a coalition of hostage family members and civil society and opposition groups, according to The Washington Post.

“The families of the hostages have reached a breaking point with Netanyahu,” Josh Drill, who heads a group called Change Generation that demands a new government and the freeing of the hostages, told the Post.

Family members also spoke out directly.

“We believe that no hostages will come back with this government because they’re busy putting sticks in the wheels of negotiations for the hostages,” Boaz Atzili, whose cousin and cousin’s wife were both taken hostage, told AP. “Netanyahu is only working in his private interests.”

Atzili’s cousin’s wife was freed, but his cousin died in Gaza.

Einav Moses, meanwhile, still has a father-in-law being held in Gaza.

“After six months, it seems like the government understands that Bibi Netanyahu is an obstacle,” Moses told the AP. “Like he doesn’t really want to bring them back, that they have failed in this mission.”

On Saturday, protests were concentrated in Tel Aviv, but also took place in other cities including Jerusalem and Haifa. On Sunday, the main demonstration was held outside the Knesset in Jerusalem, which organizers said was the largest in Israel since October 7.

“Reservists rushing between the Kaplan Street demonstrations and the ruins of Gaza or its skies, peppered with bombers or predator drones, are also respondents to a poll, whose answer is unambiguous.”

Protesters blocked the main highway in Tel Aviv on Saturday and lit bonfires in the streets, The Washington Post reported. Police sprayed them with water cannons and arrested 16, including family members of hostages. On Sunday, demonstrators also blocked roads in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Some protesters set up tents and prepared to stay until Wednesday, according to The New York Times.

“I will camp here in front of the Knesset until the PM resigns,” demonstrator Yaacov Godo, who lost a son on October 7, told The Guardian.

Israel is not scheduled to hold elections again until spring 2026, but Netanyahu’s coalition currently trails the opposition in the polls.

However, Israeli journalist Amira Hass, who covers the Occupied Territories for Haaretz, argued in a column for that paper that the majority of Israelis continue to support Netanyahu by backing the devastation wrought on Gaza.

“Reservists rushing between the Kaplan Street demonstrations and the ruins of Gaza or its skies, peppered with bombers or predator drones, are also respondents to a poll, whose answer is unambiguous,” Hass said, referring to a major Tel Aviv thoroughfare.

Hass wrote that the Israeli government’s plan for Palestinians amounted to forcing them to choose between accepting second-class status, leaving their homes entirely, or war and death.

“This is the plan now carried out in Gaza and the West Bank, with most Israelis serving as active and enthusiastic accomplices, or passively acquiescing in its realization, regardless of their revulsion for this government and its members,” Hass concluded. “The vast majority still believe that war is the solution.”

Original article by OLIVIA ROSANE republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingDemanding ‘Immediate Removal’ of Netanyahu, Tens of Thousands Protest in Israel

‘Crucial’ UN Report on Gaza Genocide Must Spur Global Action, Says Amnesty

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Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

A wounded person receives treatment at a local hospital in the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah on March 24, 2024.
 (Photo: Khaled Omar/Xinhua via Getty Images

U.N. member states must “use their influence” to push Israel to halt its bombardment of Gaza and blocking of humanitarian aid, said the group’s secretary general.

“The time to act to prevent genocide is now,” Amnesty International’s secretary general said Tuesday, a day after the United Nations Human Rights Council released a draft report detailing how the panel found that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that Israel is already committing genocidal violence in Gaza.

Amnesty’s Agnes Callamard called the 25-page report a “crucial body of work that must serve as a vital call to action to states,” many of which have called for a cease-fire in Gaza for several months.

After the U.N. report found that “the overwhelming nature and scale of Israel’s assault on Gaza… reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group,” Callamard said “states must now focus their efforts on making these calls a reality.”

“Third states must apply political pressure on the warring parties to implement the U.N. Security Council resolution adopted yesterday demanding an immediate cease-fire, use their influence to insist that Israel abides by the resolution, including by stopping the shelling and lifting restrictions on humanitarian aid,” said Callamard. “They must impose a comprehensive arms embargo against all parties to the conflict. They must also pressure Hamas and other armed groups to free all civilian hostages.”

The U.N. report was released the same day that the U.N Security Council adopted a resolution demanding an immediate, temporary cease-fire for the remainder of the month of Ramadan—the first cease-fire resolution to pass at the council following three that failed due to the U.S. vetoing the measures.

The U.S., which gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aid and has continued to provide support throughout the bombardment, abstained from voting on Monday’s resolution and infuriated human rights experts by baselessly claiming the vote was “nonbinding.”

The U.N. report, titled Anatomy of a Genocide, detailed actions Israel has taken since beginning its bombardment of Gaza in October that could violate Article II of the Genocide Convention, including killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.

Along with killing at least 32,414 Palestinians in Gaza—73% of whom have been women and children, and the remaining 27% were not proven to have been Hamas members—Israel has also imposed mass starvation on the population, killing “10 children daily,” according to the report. Israel has detained thousands of Palestinian men and boys in undisclosed locations; injured 70,000 people; forced medical personnel to perform “hazardous health procedures, such as amputations without anesthetics, including on children”; and “destroyed or severely damaged most life-sustaining infrastructure.”

Callamard noted on Tuesday that the report came two months after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced an interim ruling that Israel is “plausibly” committing a genocide in Gaza and ordered the country to take action to prevent genocidal violence by its forces.

“In that time, the situation in Gaza has grown exponentially worse, with thousands more Palestinians killed and Israel continuing to refuse to comply with the ICJ ruling to ensure provision of sufficient humanitarian aid to Palestinians as human-made famine edges closer each day and more people starve to death,” said Callamard.

The secretary general echoed a call in the report, which was compiled by Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, for the full funding of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Israel said Sunday it will no longer permit UNRWA aid trucks to deliver humanitarian relief in northern Gaza, where one-third of children under age 2 are now suffering from acute malnutrition. The U.S. officially suspended UNRWA funding through March 2025 on Monday after President Joe Biden signed a new spending package into law.

The U.S. led several countries in cutting funding to the agency in January after Israel claimed 12 of UNRWA’s 13,000 employees in Gaza had been involved in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel in October. Countries including Finland, Canada, and Australia have since reinstated funding.

Callamard also called on all states, particularly powerful Western countries that are allied with Israel, including the U.S., to support international authorities as they try to hold Israeli officials to account for the mass killing and starving of civilians in Gaza. Israel has refused to allow U.N. experts and other independent human rights monitors access to Gaza.

“Helping to prevent genocide also means supporting accountability efforts including the ongoing investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and exercising universal jurisdiction to bring those suspected of crimes under international law to justice,” said Callamard.

The secretary general noted that momentum has grown in recent days around international calls for a cease-fire, but said a desperately needed halt in fighting requires a concerted push by influential states to become a reality.

“An enduring cease-fire,” said Callamard, “remains the best way to enforce the ICJ’s provisional measures to prevent genocide and further crimes and civilian suffering.”

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue Reading‘Crucial’ UN Report on Gaza Genocide Must Spur Global Action, Says Amnesty

Protesters across Arab countries call for immediate ceasefire in Gaza

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Original article by Peoples Dispatch republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Protesters gather in Amman in Jordan demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Photo: Al Mayadeen

People took to the streets in a number of countries across West Asia and North Africa after the UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire. However, Israel refused to heed the call and continued its attacks on Gaza on Tuesday

Large-scale protests broke out in different parts of West Asia and North Africa on Monday, March 25 in support of Palestine with people chanting slogans against the Israeli war in Gaza and demanding an immediate ceasefire. People took to the streets in a number of countries in the aftermath of the UN Security Council resolution that called for a ceasefire.

Jordanian security forces fired tear gas shells to disperse protesters who tried to storm the Israeli embassy in Amman. Thousands of these protestors chanted slogans in solidarity with the people in Gaza and in support of the Al-Aqsa mosque. Many of them carried Palestinian flags which they hoisted in nearby buildings.

Similar protests took place in other parts of the country. A day before, Jordanian forces had prevented a large group of people from marching to the Israeli embassy.

Protests were also organized in the Iraqi capital Baghdad and Cairo in Egypt as well on Monday where hundreds gathered to chant slogans in support of Palestine and demand an immediate ceasefire.

Hundreds also gathered in Tangiers in Morocco to demonstrate against the continued Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

Protests were also organized in the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem and in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday. Hundreds of Palestinians, defying Israeli dictates and ongoing attacks, took to the streets in the morning to call for a ceasefire.

The protests followed the UNSC resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire. The resolution was adopted after the US, which had blocked three similar previous resolutions, decided to abstain. All the other members of the Security Council supported the resolution.

The resolution called for an immediate ceasefire during the month of Ramadan and for working towards a permanent cessation of hostilities and the release of all hostages. It was welcomed by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and most of the countries in the region.

Hamas reiterated its demand for a permanent ceasefire that would lead to the complete withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza and the return of all Palestinians displaced due to the war over five months.

Nearly the entire population of Gaza, around 2.3 million, has been displaced due to the Israeli war which has killed more than 32,000 and wounded close to 74,000 Palestinians.

The Iranian foreign ministry welcomed the UNSC resolution, calling it a positive step and demanded its immediate implementation. It also demanded the lifting of all blockades on the supply of aid to Gaza and the opening of all border crossings to the besieged territory and immediate resumption of reconstruction.

Israel has however rejected the resolution. It carried out fresh attacks on Gaza on Tuesday, killing dozens of Palestinians.

The resolution accepted by the Security Council is binding on all members of the UN. However, only a fresh vote in the Security Council can decide the future course of action in case one particular party chooses not to implement it.

Original article by Peoples Dispatch republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingProtesters across Arab countries call for immediate ceasefire in Gaza

US Abstains as UN Security Council Demands ‘Immediate Cease-Fire’ in Gaza

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Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield raises her hand to abstain during a U.N. Security Council vote on a Gaza cease-fire resolution on March 25, 2024 in New York City.  (Photo: Fatih Aktas/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“This resolution must be implemented,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. “Failure would be unforgivable.”

The U.S. on Monday declined to veto but still abstained from a United Nations Security Council on Monday to adopt a resolution demanding an “immediate cease-fire for the month of Ramadan” in the embattled Gaza Strip, a move that came amid an ongoing Israeli genocide in which more than 114,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded and hundreds of thousands of others are starving.

The Security Council voted 14-0, with the U.S. abstaining, to approve a resolution for the cessation of hostilities during the Muslim holy month after member states overcame a sticking point over the removal of the word “permanent” from an earlier draft version. Instead, the resolution calls for an “immediate” cease-fire.

The U.S. had vetoed three of the previous four cease-fire resolutions.

“This resolution must be implemented,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said following Monday’s vote. “Failure would be unforgivable.”

As the U.N. News explained:

The resolution is a bare-bones call for a cease-fire during the month of Ramadan, which began on March 11. It also demands the return of about 130 hostages seized in Israel and held in Gaza and emphasizes the urgent need to allow ample lifesaving aid to reach a starving population in the besieged enclave.

The demand to end hostilities has so far eluded the council following the Israeli forces’ invasion of Gaza in October after Hamas attacks left almost 1,200 dead and 240 taken hostage.

Since then, Israel’s daily bombardment alongside its near-total blockade of water, electricity, and lifesaving aid has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the health ministry there, where a recent U.N.-backed report showed an imminent famine unfolding.

Palestinians—especially children—are starving to death in Gaza. Hospitals are under attack, with Israeli forces reportedly executing large numbers of people inside al-Shifa Hospital.

Meanwhile, the approximately 1.5 milllion Palestinians in the southern city of Rafah—most of them refugees forcibly displaced from other parts of Gaza—are bracing for an anticipated ground invasion, which Israeli leaders say will proceed despite a warning from U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris that such an operation would have “consequences.”

Monday’s vote followed intense negotiations over the measure introduced by 10 non-permanent Security Council members—Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, South Korea, and Switzerland.

The United States—which, despite growing frustration over genocidal atrocities, still arms Israel—brushed off a threat from far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel a planned visit to Washigton by a high-level Israeli delegation if the U.S. did not veto the resolution.

The Associated Press reported Netanyahu followed through with his threat and canceled the trip.

Human rights defenders welcomed Monday’s vote.

“Israel needs to immediately respond to the U.N. Security Council resolution adopted today by facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid, ending its starvation of Gaza’s population, and halting unlawful attacks,” Louis Charbonneau, director of Human Rights Watch’s U.N. program, said in a statement.

“Palestinian armed groups should immediately release all civilians held hostage,” he added. “The U.S. and other countries should use their leverage to end atrocities by suspending arms transfers to Israel.”

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue ReadingUS Abstains as UN Security Council Demands ‘Immediate Cease-Fire’ in Gaza