We stand firmly against injustice in all its forms. Nothing can justify the current war crimes committed by Israel in occupied Palestine. Equally, nothing can excuse the continued support offered by other nations to this apartheid regime. If you believe in human rights, dignity, and justice, then we urge you to boycott this rogue state. Silence is complicity, do what’s right.
Tell them, we did not live silent. We lit up the sky. We laughed. We took care of each other. Tell them, we were broken. But we did not live silent. We reached the impossible. And it was impossible. If I die, tell them, we did not live silent. We sang. We taught. We learned. We… pic.twitter.com/469iMHFQAR
The Biden administration is already undermining a long-sought UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, leading some to ask, “What the hell is the point of the UN or the UN Security Council?”
ASSAL RAD
REUTERSUS Representative to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield is seen on the day of a vote on a Gaza resolution for an immediate ceasefire at UN headquarters in New York City, March 25, 2024. / Photo: Reuters
After vetoing three separate United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, the United States finally abstained from voting in the latest ceasefire resolution, allowing its passage.
The resolution signifies the appearance of progress on the US position and spurred backlash from Israel (the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promptly cancelled a planned delegation to the US after it refrained from using its veto power a fourth time. But US President Joe Biden’s administration has quickly moved to undermine the significance of the resolution.
Hours after the resolution passed, White House spokesperson John Kirby stated that the US abstention “does not represent a shift in our policy.”
And in a State Department press briefing following the UNSC vote, spokesperson Matthew Miller claimed “it’s a non-binding resolution,” making the US position clear and suggesting that the ceasefire resolution is the opinion of the UN body, rather than a substantive rule.
In a critical exchange with Miller, Associated Press reporter Matt Lee raisedthe question many observers have had about Israel’s war on Gaza: “What the hell is the point of the UN or the UN Security Council?”
Experts and commentators, such as former UN official and human rights attorney Craig Mokhiber, swiftly expressed their criticism of the US for undermining the resolution, which is already weak for only demanding a “ceasefire for the month of Ramadan” that apparently leads “to a lasting sustainable ceasefire.”
Mokhiber made headlines in October 2023 after resigning from his post as director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, citing the UN’s failure to prevent “a text-book case of genocide” in Gaza.
While the language of the resolution was watered down, its passage was met with applause by the UN body because of the desperate need to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which includes the fastest acceleration of a faminethat has ever been seen, according to International Rescue Committee President David Miliband.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres made clear that the resolution was not simply a non-binding declaration, that it “must be implemented” and failure to do so would be “unforgivable.” However, when asked by reporters if he thought the resolution would prompt Israel to announce a ceasefire, spokesperson Miller replied, “I do not.”
There is no doubt that the passage of the UN ceasefire resolution is significant. It gives further legal basis for Israel’s accountability over its actions in Gaza and legal merit to accusations of complicity for countries—like the United States—that continue to arm and support Israel’s “plausibly genocidal” war.
Like the ruling of the International Court of Justice in January, the UN ceasefire resolution adds to mounting evidence and legal obligations of Israel and its supporters to stop the war on Gaza, which has already killed over 32,000 Palestinians with many thousands unaccounted for and still buriedunder the rubble.
AFPA cat approaches a woman mourning by the bodies of her relatives who were killed during Israeli bombardment the previous night, at Al Najar Hospital in Rafah in southern Gaza on March 26, 2024 (AFP/Mohammed Abed).
At the same time, critics are right to question the point of these measures when the reality on the ground does not change for Palestinians.
Israel has ignored international law for decades with its continuing occupation of Palestinian land, apartheid, expansion of settlements and land seizure in the occupied West Bank, blockade of Gaza, permitting settler violence, war crimes, and a long list of other crimes.
Now, Israel has taken its disdain for international law and human rights to the greatest extreme, with language matched by actions that are genocidal and its deliberate restrictions on aid into Gaza creating a man-made famine.
So, what is the point of the United Nations or the Security Council? With its creation in the wake of World War II, the most basic principles of the UN were to protect future generations from the scourge of war and assert faith in fundamental human rights for the peoples of all nations.
While the international body can declare these laws and propose needed measures, it is up to states to implement them.
While Israel itself has shown a complete disregard for the international system, it is the responsibility of other nations—especially its supporters and backers—to hold it accountable.
Much can be said of Western hypocrisy and the double standards that are fairly commonplace in power politics, but the absolute contempt the Biden administration has shown for the international system it boasts about, in order to hold Israel above the law, has reached new levels of dishonesty.
The Biden administration’s willingness to isolate the US on the global stage, destroy any vestige of US credibility, and essentially ignore the international community shows a dangerously zealous face of US foreign policy.
Despite assertions from international bodies like the UN Security Council, World Health Organization, and the International Court of Justice, the testimony of UN experts, the evidence from international aid and human rights organisations like Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam International, and Human Rights Watch, and the witness accounts of journalists and aid workers on the ground in Gaza, the US continues to defend Israel’s actions and deny any wrongdoing.
By using the United Nations as a tool of its own political agenda, rather than a tool for international law and justice, the United States has rendered the body meaningless.
The Biden administration’s willingness to isolate the US on the global stage, destroy any vestige of US credibility, and essentially ignore the international community shows a dangerously zealous face of US foreign policy. The mask is truly off.
In the world's embrace, children find their place,
Amidst chaos and strife, they radiate grace.
To music's sweet tune, they rest and they rise,
While echoes of gunfire pierce through our skies.
Yet they play, they laugh, they sing love's refrain,
Defying the darkness, they kindle hope's flame.
Let their joy be our compass, their laughter our guide,
In their innocence, may our courage reside.
The Israeli army has executed thirteen children by direct shooting in the Shifa Medical Complex and its environs in Gaza City, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor revealed in a statement issued Tuesday.
This is a war crime and a crime against humanity that is part of the genocide that the Palestinian people have been living through in the Gaza Strip for the past six months, the statement reads.
According to the Euro-Med, the Israeli army has been conducting for over a week systematic and horrifying military operations inside and around Al-Shifa Hospital.
“These crimes include extrajudicial executions and deliberate killings of Palestinian civilians.”
The Euro-Med field team received identical testimonies about the killings and executions of Palestinian children between the ages of 4 and 16.
Some of the casualties occurred during an Israeli army siege while their families were inside their homes, and others occurred when the victims attempted to escape down routes that the Israeli army had predetermined after being forcibly evacuated from their homes and places of residence.
Living close to Al-Shifa Hospital, Palestinian Islam Ali Salouha told Euro-Med that Israeli forces killed his son Ali, 9, and Saeed Muhammad Sheikha, 6, in front of their families and fellow locals. They had targeted them specifically with live bullets.
Euro-Med draws attention to the need to protect Palestinian children, who are more vulnerable to the ongoing Israeli crimes in the Gaza Strip and who are no longer afforded any protection under international law.
The damaged gate of Al Aqsa University, which was destroyed by the Israeli army, stands in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on April 14, 2024 [File: Reuters/Doaa Rouqa]
We have come together as Palestinian academics and staff of Gaza universities to affirm our existence, the existence of our colleagues and our students, and the insistence on our future, in the face of all current attempts to erase us.
The Israeli occupation forces have demolished our buildings but our universities live on. We reaffirm our collective determination to remain on our land and to resume teaching, study, and research in Gaza, at our own Palestinian universities, at the earliest opportunity.
Inspired by my reporting at @TheGrayzoneNews, this brilliant takedown by @propandco provides the strongest and most accessible refutation of the bogus atrocity propaganda Israel concocted to justify its genocidal rampage in Gaza
