(LifeSiteNews) — The Trump Administration’s delegation to the United Nations vetoed a resolution at the Security Council (UNSC) on Wednesday which called for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza, the release of all Israeli hostages, and the unrestricted flow of all humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.
Once again demonstrating its political isolation on the issue, the US stood alone among the 15-member body in its rejection of the resolution with all other 14 nations voting in favor of the measure. These included the other four permanent members who also, like the US, may exercise veto authority on the UNSC: Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France.
The resolution was introduced by the ten non-permanent members of the council who are elected to these roles in the 193-member UN General Assembly: Algeria, Denmark, Greece, Guyana, Panama, Pakistan, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Slovenia.
In a joint statement, these “E10” nations decried the “catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza” and expressed their belief that the text of their resolution “reflects the consensus shared by all Council members that the war in Gaza has to come to an immediate halt, all hostages must be immediately and unconditionally released, and civilians in Gaza must not starve and must have full and unimpeded access to aid.”
While the Biden Administration vetoed several similar resolutions at the UNSC, Wednesday’s vote marked the first time the Trump administration utilized its veto power on the council to block a ceasefire resolution on behalf of Israel.
In a statement on “X/Twitter,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar thanked Donald Trump and his administration for “standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel and vetoing this one-sided resolution in the UN Security Council. The proposed resolution only strengthens Hamas and undermines American efforts to achieve a hostage deal.”
Yet last February Hamas offered to release all remaining Israeli hostages and prisoners of war in exchange for a permanent ceasefire and Israel’s full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, a deal the Israelis rejected.
Furthermore, in early May, the Israeli government announced its plans to initiate a full-scale and permanent occupation of Gaza, including the war crime of further displacement of Palestinian civilians.
There will be “no retreat from the territories we have conquered, not even in exchange for hostages,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said at the time. The Israeli army also listed the return of the hostages and prisoners of war as the least important of their goals for their military operation in the region as well.
In explaining the veto, US interim representative to the UN Dorothy Shea said that “any product that undermines our close ally Israel’s security is a nonstarter.”
Having supported the resolution on behalf of the U.K., British ambassador, Barbara Woodward called Israel’s new humanitarian aid system “inhumane” and demanded that Israel “end its restriction on aid now.”
“This Israeli government’s decisions to expand its military operations in Gaza and severely restrict aid are unjustifiable, disproportionate and counterproductive,” she said. “And the UK completely opposes them.”
READ: Israel shoots starving civilians seeking food in Gaza, media can no longer hide the atrocities
Pakistan’s ambassador said the failed resolution would “remain not only a moral stain on the conscience of this council, but a fateful moment of political application that will reverberate for generations.”
The resolution vote occurred with numerous UN aid and other humanitarian organizations issuing dire warnings of famine conditions in Gaza following a total embargo of aid from March 2 until recently when restricted supplies were admitted in under what the Guardian has called a “shambolic rollout of a US-and Israeli-backed scheme called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.”
“The world is watching, day after day, horrifying scenes of Palestinians being shot, wounded or killed in Gaza while simply trying to eat,” warned Tom Fletcher, a UN humanitarian aid chief.
READ: Israeli IDF kills one, wounds 48 others as mass of starving Palestinians seek food in Gaza
Woodward added, “Israel needs to end its restrictions on aid now: let the UN and humanitarians do their job to save lives, reduce suffering and maintain dignity.”
Overwhelming majority of nations support ceasefire and reject ‘any effort to starve Palestinians’
Last November, when the Biden Administration was still in office, the U.S. delegation at the UN vetoed a similar measure, again defying the rest of the UNSC members who all voted in favor with a 14 to 1 final tally.
UN ambassador for Palestine Majed Bamya issued a stirring admonition to the U.S. position at the time clarifying, “there is no right to mass killing of civilians. There is no right to starve an entire civilian population. There is no right to forcibly displace a people. And there is no right to annexation. This is what Israel is doing in Gaza. These are its war objectives. This is what the absence of a ceasefire is allowing it to continue doing.”
READ: ‘No justification’: Palestinian UN envoy delivers stirring rebuke following US ceasefire veto
Bamya further emphasized the “full-fledged Israeli assault against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian land is about everything except the hostages. If the families of hostages can see that, how can anyone in this room claim otherwise?”
Soon after this U.S. veto in the Security Council, an overwhelming majority of nations in the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) voted in December to demand an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza and to reject “any effort to starve Palestinians” by a vote of 158 nations to 9 (including Israel and U.S.).
Expelling the Palestinian people has always been a goal of Zionism
In a November 2023, 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, 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 colonies (“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 colonies on confiscated Palestinian land. These settlements now number 147 with 224 additional “outposts,” which are now home to around 700,000 Jewish “settlers.”
Unanimous and constant voice of Catholic and Orthodox bishops in the region demand an end to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land
It is precisely this military occupation of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem which the unanimous and constant voice of the Catholic and Orthodox bishops of the region confirm to be the “root” aggression of the seemingly intractable conflict. In the words of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Ordinaries of the region, “only the [Israeli] occupier” can bring peace by ending its aggressive occupation of internationally recognized Palestinians lands.
READ: How do Christians in the Holy Land understand the Israeli occupation of Palestine?
Following a judgement last July of the International Court of Justice ruling that Israel’s ongoing occupation was illegal, the UNGA voted 124 nations to 14 in September demanding Israel end its occupation within 12 months.
Reflecting on the US veto of Wednesday’s UNSC resolution, Algeria’s ambassador to the UN, Amar Bendjama said, “today, the elected members of the Council have stood with clarity, with conviction, with courage — they are the proud bearer of moral legitimacy,” adding the measure was not merely “the voice of the few, but the collective will of the entire world.”
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