Russia, China veto US resolution at UN Security Council over its failure to ‘unequivocally’ call for Gaza ceasefire

The UN Security Council meets to consider a motion for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal vote at UN headquarters in New York, on March 22, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 22 March 2024
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Russia, China veto US resolution at UN Security Council over its failure to ‘unequivocally’ call for Gaza ceasefire

  • US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield describes vetoes as ‘cynical and petty’
  • Guyanese envoy Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett says text contains ‘no attribution or demands to the Israeli authorities for what is taking place in Gaza’

NEW YORK: Russia and China on Friday vetoed a US-backed draft resolution at the UN Security Council on Gaza, with Moscow rejecting what it described as a “diluted formulation” of a ceasefire call that will not save Palestinian lives and fails to rein in Israel at a time when the enclave “has been virtually wiped off the face of the earth.”
Without directly calling for a ceasefire, the text “determines the imperative of an immediate and sustained ceasefire to protect civilians on all sides, allow for the delivery of humanitarian assistance and alleviate humanitarian suffering, and toward that end unequivocally supports ongoing international diplomatic efforts to secure such a ceasefire in connection with the release of all remaining hostages.”
The draft also condemns Hamas, demands the lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance at scale, and rejects any forced displacement of the civilian population in Gaza as a violation of international law.
Its text, seen by Arab News, had undergone six revisions during a month of negotiations.
Russia and China exercised their vetoes, while Algeria also voted against and Guyana abstained. The other 11 Security Council members voted in favor, including permanent members France and Britain.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield described Russia and China’s vetoes as “cynical” and “petty,” accusing both of “not doing anything diplomatically to advance lasting peace or to meaningfully contribute to the humanitarian response efforts.”
She said: “Russia and China refuse to condemn Hamas for burning people alive, for gunning down innocent civilians at a concert, for raping women and girls, for taking hundreds of people hostage. This was the deadliest single attack on Jews since the Holocaust, and a permanent member of this council can’t even condemn it. I’m sorry, it’s really outrageous, and it’s below the dignity of this body.
“Russia, who has carried out an unprovoked war on its neighbor, has the audacity and hypocrisy to throw stones, when it lives in a glass house itself.”
Her Russian counterpart, Vasily Nebenzia, said the US four times “in cold blood” cast a veto in the Security Council.
“Six months have elapsed. Gaza has virtually been wiped from the earth and now the US representative, without blinking, has been asserting that Washington has finally begun to recognize the need for a ceasefire,” he said.
Nebenzia said that “this sluggish thought process in Washington has come at the cost of the lives of 32,000 peaceful Palestinians, two-thirds of whom are women and children.”
He added that the draft is “extremely politicized,” adding that its purpose is to throw “a bone to US voters in the form of some kind of a ceasefire in Gaza,” and “to ensure impunity for Israel, whose crimes are not mentioned in the draft.”
The Russian envoy also said that the draft gave “an effective green light” to Israel to mount a military incursion into Rafah, where over 1.4 million Palestinian have taken refuge.
Zhang Jun, China’s permanent representative to the UN, said the US draft was ambiguous on the “most central issue,” that of a ceasefire, and so fell short of the consensus of council members and the expectations of the international community.
“The US draft sets up preconditions for a ceasefire, which is no different from giving a green light to continued killings, which is unacceptable,” Zhang said.
The Chinese envoy added that the US text does not clearly oppose Israel’s repeated declarations of its intent to invade Rafah, “which would send an utterly wrong signal and lead to severe consequences.”
Zhang said that if the US is serious about a ceasefire, it should vote for a new resolution tabled by seven elected members of the council and calling unequivocally for a Ramadan ceasefire. A vote on the resolution is set to take place on Saturday morning.
Guyana’s Ambassador to the UN, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, abstained from voting, and said that the demand for a ceasefire should not be linked to or conditioned on the release of Israeli hostages.
“The taking of hostages is strictly prohibited in international law and the release must be unconditional.”
Two wrongs cannot make a right, she said, adding that “the Palestinian people should not be collectively punished and themselves held hostage for the crime of others.”
Rodrigues-Birkett said that although the US draft resolution “rightfully’ condemns Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks, the text contains “no attribution or demands to the Israeli authorities for what is taking place in Gaza.”
Referring to Rafah, she said the US draft endorses continuing attacks “as long as measures are taken to protect civilians,” adding that this is “in direct contravention of the council’s responsibility.”
Samuel Zbogar, Slovenia’s ambassador, said his country voted in favor of the resolution because “the killing and starving of civilians in Gaza must stop and the suffering of hostages and their families must end.”
Zbogar thanked Egypt, Qatar and the US for their efforts to secure a deal on the ground, and said that Slovenia believes that a “strong signal of support from the council” could give negotiations an important impetus.
He also expressed deep concern over statements by Israeli officials calling for the resettlement of the people of Gaza, and rejected a possible ground invasion in Rafah.
“For Slovenia, Palestinian lives matter. Israeli lives matter. This conflict must end.”
Swiss Ambassador Pascale Baeriswyl voted in favor of the resolution, but argued for its content “to clearly reflect the request by a very large majority of council members for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to be established without any preconditions.
“It is high time for an unequivocal request for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to be subject of consensus at the Security Council,” Baeriswyl said.


Israeli military neutralizes ‘number of terrorists’ crossing from Jordan

Updated 3 sec ago
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Israeli military neutralizes ‘number of terrorists’ crossing from Jordan

  • Two of them were killed after they opened fire on Israeli forces
DUBAI: The Israeli military identified what it called “a number of terrorists” crossing from Jordan into the south of the Dead Sea region and neutralized two of them after they opened fire on Israeli forces, it said in a statement on Friday.

PM Najib Mikati rejects Iranian interference in Lebanese matter

Updated 11 min 20 sec ago
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PM Najib Mikati rejects Iranian interference in Lebanese matter

  • Speaker of Iran’s parliament said Tehran was ready to negotiate with France on implementing a UN resolution concerning southern Lebanon
  • Prime Minister Najib Mikati: ‘We are surprised by this position, which constitutes a blatant interference in Lebanese affairs’
DUBAI: Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister said on Friday he rejected Iranian interference in a Lebanese matter, after the speaker of Iran’s parliament said Tehran was ready to negotiate with France on implementing a UN resolution concerning southern Lebanon.
UN Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, calls for the border area of southern Lebanon to be free of weapons or troops other than those of the Lebanese state, with the aim of keeping peace on the border with Israel.
The speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, made his comments in an interview published on Thursday.
“We are surprised by this position, which constitutes a blatant interference in Lebanese affairs and an attempt to establish a rejected guardianship over Lebanon,” a government statement quoted Prime Minister Najib Mikati as saying.
Mikati added that negotiating to implement UN resolution 1701 was a matter for the Lebanese state.
Under Resolution 1701, the United Nations Security Council authorized a UN peacekeeping mission known as UNIFIL “to assist” Lebanese forces in ensuring southern Lebanon is “free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon.”
Israel says the Lebanese army and UNIFIL have failed to secure the area. It started a ground operation in Lebanon on Oct. 1 after almost a year of ongoing hostilities with Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in parallel with the war in Gaza.
The UN Security Council has expressed strong concerns after several UN peacekeeping positions in southern Lebanon came under fire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that it is time to withdraw UNIFIL.
Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon told Reuters on Monday he wanted to see “a more robust mandate for UNIFIL to deter Hezbollah.”
The peacekeeping mission is currently authorized until Aug. 31, 2025.

Israeli drone video captures last minutes of Hamas leader Sinwar’s life

Updated 18 October 2024
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Israeli drone video captures last minutes of Hamas leader Sinwar’s life

  • Israeli troops were initially unaware that they had caught their country’s number one enemy

JERUSALEM: Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was tracked by an Israeli mini drone as he lay dying in the ruins of a building in southern Gaza and filmed him slumped in a chair covered in dust, according to video released by Israeli authorities on Thursday.
As the drone hovered nearby, the video showed him throwing a stick at it, in an apparent act of desperation.
After an intensive manhunt that had lasted for more than a year, the Israeli troops that killed Sinwar were initially unaware that they had caught their country’s number one enemy after a gunbattle on Wednesday, Israeli officials said.
Intelligence services had been gradually restricting the area where he could operate, the military said on Thursday, after dental records, fingerprints and DNA testing provided final confirmation of Sinwar’s death.


But unlike other militant leaders tracked down and killed by Israel, including Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on July 13, the operation which finally killed Sinwar was not a planned and targeted strike, or an operation carried out by elite commandos.
Instead, officials said he was found by infantry soldiers from the Bislach Brigade, a unit that normally trains future unit commanders. The soldiers were searching an area in the Tal El Sultan area of southern Gaza on Wednesday, where they believed senior members of Hamas were located.
The troops saw three suspected militants moving between buildings and opened fire, leading to a gunfight during which Sinwar escaped into a ruined building.
According to accounts in Israeli media, tank shells and a missile were also fired at the building.
On Thursday, the military released footage from a mini drone that it said showed Sinwar, badly wounded in the hand, sitting on a chair, his face covered in a scarf. The film shows him attempting to throw a stick at the drone, in a futile effort to knock it down.
At this stage, Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said, Sinwar was only identified as a fighter, but troops entered and found him with a weapon, a flak jacket and 40,000 shekels ($10,731.63).
“He tried to escape and our forces eliminated him,” he told reporters in a televised briefing.
Hamas has not made any comment itself, but sources within the group have said that the indications they have seen suggest Sinwar was indeed killed by Israeli troops.
“The dozens of operations carried out by the IDF and the ISA over the last year, and in recent weeks in the area where he was eliminated, restricted Yahya Sinwar’s operational movement as he was pursued by the forces and led to his elimination,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
In the last months of his life, Sinwar, the main architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that set off the war in Gaza, appears to have stopped using telephones and other communication equipment that would have allowed Israel’s powerful intelligence services to track him down.
Israeli officials said they believed he was hiding in one of the vast network of tunnels that Hamas dug beneath Gaza over the past two decades, but as more and more have been uncovered by Israeli troops, even the tunnels were no guarantee of escaping capture.
The head of Israel’s military, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said Israel’s pursuit of Sinwar over the past year drove him “to act like a fugitive, causing him to change locations multiple times.”
Israeli officials, who knew Sinwar as a ruthless and committed enemy, were long concerned that he had surrounded himself with some of the 101 Israeli and foreign hostages still held in Gaza as a human shield to protect himself from Israeli attacks.
But no hostages were found nearby when he was finally trapped on Wednesday, although Hagari said samples of his DNA were located in a tunnel a few hundred meters from where six Israeli hostages were executed by Hamas at the end of August.


At least 28 dead in Gaza strike on school-turned-shelter

Updated 18 October 2024
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At least 28 dead in Gaza strike on school-turned-shelter

  • Israeli said the strike targeted militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups
  • Hamas said allegations about fighters present at school were 'nothing but lies'

CAIRO: At least 28 Palestinians including children were killed on Thursday in an Israeli strike on a shelter in the northern Gaza Strip, a Gaza health ministry official said, while Israel said the attack targeted tens of militants at the site.
Dozens were also injured in the strike, said the official, Medhat Abbas, adding: “There is no water to extinguish the fire. There is nothing. This is a massacre.”
“Civilians and children are being killed, burned under fire,” said Abbas.
The Israeli military said in a statement the strike targeted militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups, who operated from within the Abu Hussein School in Jabalia that had been serving as a shelter for displaced people.
It said dozens of militants were present inside the compound when the strike took place, and provided the names of at least 12 of them, which Reuters could not immediately verify.
The military said it took precautions to mitigate harm to civilians and accused Hamas of using them as human shields — a practice Hamas denies.
Hamas said in a statement that allegations there were fighters at the school were “nothing but lies,” adding this was “a systematic policy of the enemy to justify its crime.”
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office put the number of dead at the school at 28. It said 160 people were wounded in the attack.
Earlier on Thursday, Palestinian health officials said at least 11 Palestinians were killed in two separate Israeli strikes in Gaza City, while several others were killed in central and southern Gaza areas.
Footage circulated by Palestinian media of the Abu Hussein School and which Reuters couldn’t immediately verify, showed smoke coming from tents that caught fire, as many displaced people evacuated casualties including children to ambulances.
Residents of Jabalia, in northern Gaza, said Israeli forces blew up clusters of houses firing from the air, from tanks and by placing bombs in buildings then detonating them remotely.
The area has been a focus for the Israeli military for the past two weeks, which says it is trying to stop Hamas fighters from regrouping for more attacks.
Residents said Israeli forces had effectively isolated Beit Hanoun, Jabalia, and Beit Lahiya in the far north of the enclave from Gaza City, blocking movement except for those families heeding evacuation orders and leaving the three towns.
“We have written our death notes, and we are not leaving Jabalia,” one resident told Reuters via a chat app.
“The occupation (Israel) is punishing us for not leaving our houses in the early days of the war, and we are not going now either. They are blowing up houses, and roads, and are starving us but we die once and we don’t lose our pride,” the father of four said, refusing to give his name, fearing Israeli reprisal.
The Israeli military said on Thursday that it seized many weapons in the area, some of which were stashed in a school, and that its forces have killed dozens of militants in airstrikes and combat at close quarters, as troops try to root out Hamas forces operating in the rubble.
Northern Gaza, which had been home to well over half the territory’s 2.3 million people, was bombed to rubble in the first phase of Israel’s assault on the territory a year ago, after the Oct. 7 attacks on southern Israel by Hamas-led fighters, who killed 1,200 people and captured 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel’s offensive so far, according to Gaza’s health authorities.
The United States has told Israel that it must take steps to improve the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza in 30 days or face potential restrictions on military aid.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss expanding humanitarian aid to Gaza, officials said, with aid likely to increase soon.


Egypt raises gasoline, diesel prices for third time this year

Updated 18 October 2024
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Egypt raises gasoline, diesel prices for third time this year

  • Prices for diesel fuel, one of the most commonly used fuels in the country, were raised by 17 percent to 13.50 Egyptian pounds

CAIRO: Egypt raised prices on a wide range of fuel products early on Friday, the petroleum ministry said, marking the third such increase this year.
Prices for diesel fuel, one of the most commonly used fuels in the country, were raised by 17 percent to 13.50 Egyptian pounds ($0.2779) per liter from 11.50 pounds.
Gasoline prices increased from 11 percent to 13 percent depending on the grade, with 80 octane gasoline rising to 13.75 Egyptian pounds, 92 octane to 15.25 pounds, and 95 octane to 17 pounds.
Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said in July that prices of petroleum products will gradually increase until the end of 2025, adding that the government could no longer bear the burden of paying the subsidies on fuels amid increasing consumption.
But the government’s fuel pricing committee, which typically convenes each quarter, said on Friday its next meeting will be held in six months.