Help Christians survive in Gaza: LifeFunder
(LifeSiteNews) — On Tuesday, the United States vetoed a resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, casting the lone vote against the measure which tallied a 13 to 1 majority in favor on the U.N. Security Council (UNSC), with the United Kingdom abstaining.
This marks the fourth time since last fall that the Biden administration has utilized its veto power on the international body to diplomatically protect Israel’s continued onslaught of the Strip which has now killed more than 29,000 Palestinians, about two-thirds of whom are women and children.
After the vote, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield criticized the effort supported by the vast majority of nations represented on the council, and those across the world as well.
“Proceeding with a vote today was wishful and irresponsible, and so while we cannot support a resolution that would put sensitive negotiations in jeopardy, we look forward to engaging on a text that we believe will address so many of the concerns we all share,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
READ: UN member states deepen isolation of Israel, US by voting 153 to 10 for immediate ceasefire in Gaza
The ambassador argued the resolution would interfere with hostage negotiations being mediated by the prime minister of Qatar, who said on Saturday their efforts were “not very promising.”
The U.S. also plans to present its own resolution that calls for a “temporary ceasefire” if Hamas releases all of its hostages without reference to thousands of Palestinian political prisoners (i.e. “hostages”) being held by Israel. Basically representing the hardline position of Israel, the U.S. resolution also allows the Jewish state to continue its massacring rampage following its proposed pause.
Avoidance of a ceasefire no different ‘than giving a green light to continued slaughter’
Other members of the council communicated their respective positions with candor in the diplomatic body. Samuel Zbogar, the Slovenian ambassador said “the suffering that Palestinians are enduring is beyond anything a human being should be subjected to,” with the French ambassador affirming “the human costs and the humanitarian situation in Gaza is intolerable and the Israel operation must stop.”
READ: UN’s top court rules genocide charge against Israel is ‘plausible’
China’s ambassador to the U.N., Zhang Jun, said “the continued passive avoidance of an immediate ceasefire is nothing different than giving a green light to continued slaughter,” and the ambassador from the state of Algeria, who sponsored the resolution, pledged “we will not stop until this council shoulders its responsibilities in full.”
Expelling the Palestinian people has always been a goal of Zionism
In a November interview, Colonel Douglas Macgregor emphasized the long-standing goal of the Zionist project to expel the Palestinian people from the land they have lived on for centuries, calling it “the first stage in a multistage operation designed to create ‘greater Israel’ from the Jordan River all the way to the Mediterranean.” The Israelis have made this goal “abundantly clear off-and-on for many years. This is not a secret. Now it’s happening.”
READ: Col. Macgregor: The ‘top priority’ for Israel is to make Gaza ‘unlivable,’ expel all survivors
According to Israeli historian Benny Morris, the notion of expelling all Arabs from the land “is as old as modern Zionism and has accompanied its evolution and praxis during the past century.” Indeed, in the late 1930s, David Ben-Gurion, who became Israel’s first prime minister, stated, “After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.” He later projected in 1941, “it is impossible to imagine general evacuation [of the Arab population] without compulsion, and brutal compulsion.”
In 1947-48, this project began in earnest when Jewish forces compelled more than 700,000 Palestinians to flee for their lives abandoning their homes, lands, and livelihoods. The Zionist army then barred them from returning. These people, with their descendants, now make up more than 5.9 million refugees distributed in Gaza (70 percent of the overall population), Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the West Bank, with the right to return to their homeland recognized under international law.
For decades Israel defies international law as expressed by overwhelming majorities of nations
And since that time, Israel has demonstrated a policy of disregarding multitudes of U.N. resolutions ratified by overwhelming majorities of national delegations, which, in the case of the UNSC, are binding on all member states as a matter of international law.
These include Resolution 242 from 1967 which called for the “withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from [Palestinian] territories occupied” during the June 1967 war. These regions include Gaza and the West Bank.
Also included is Res. 446 from 1979, which affirmed that Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian territories “have no legal validity and constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
Having maintained its military occupation over these five-and-a-half decades, Israel has also continually expanded its illegal settlements on confiscated Palestinian land. These settlements now number 163 with 98 additional “outposts,” which are now home to over 500,000 Jewish settlers.
READ: How do Christians in the Holy Land understand the Israeli occupation of Palestine?
In all, the U.N. Security Council has issued 79 resolutions targeting Israel for serious violations of international law. These resolutions also require the Israeli government to allow refugees from the 1967 war to return to their homes and lands, define the legitimate borders of both parties, and condemn Israel for multiple unlawful attacks, violations of human rights, and more.
According to pre-October 7 numbers, 1.26 million people in Gaza, roughly 70 percent of the population suffering from Israel’s current bombardment of the strip, are classified by the United Nations as refugees.
Israel, a society ‘primed for genocide,’ seeks to ‘finish the job that it began in 1948’
For the last four months of bombing and incursions by the Israeli army, approximately 1.5 million Palestinians have suffered successive waves of displacement and been corralled into the small southern region around Rafah hemmed in by the Israeli and Egyptian border fences to the east and south, the Mediterranean Sea to the west, and the threatening Israeli army to the north.
And last week Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his army to create a plan for evacuating the civilian population of Rafah, signaling an impending invasion of the region. And just a few hours later Israeli bombardments of the city began striking residential buildings, killing 28, including at least 10 children, with air and sea attacks on Rafah killing 67 soon after.
Meanwhile, leaders of global humanitarian groups warned on Tuesday of the risk of impending mass famine due to the “persistent and intentional denials of humanitarian access principally by the Israeli government.” And since Rafah is “the last hub of healthcare services and humanitarian assistance for the people in Gaza,” attacking this area “effectively means cutting off the lifelines of people who have already lost everything except their lives.”
READ: Warnings of ‘mass starvation’ in Gaza as Western powers freeze UN relief funds
Back in November, journalist Max Blumenthal assessed that what is happening in Israel is “a fundamentally genocidal political movement, and a genocidal society. This Israeli society is primed for genocide,” he said. “I don’t think Israel will stop before it believes that it has finished the job that it began in 1948.”
The United States has provided Israel with uninterrupted supplies of munitions since last October, facilitating the continuing assault which experts have recognized as among the most destructive and deadliest in recent history, with the Biden administration still preparing to send more.
#Infographic| Statistics on the Israeli Genocide in the Gaza Strip (07 October 2023-13 February 2024) pic.twitter.com/k79PhUmNsg
— Euro-Med Monitor (@EuroMedHR) February 13, 2024
Help Christians survive in Gaza: LifeFunder
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