For the third time since October 7, the U.S. has vetoed a resolution in the UN calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The vote comes as government officials in Gaza warn that a third of the population of Gaza is currently at risk of death by starvation.
The UN Security Council resolution, drafted by Algeria, called for a ceasefire and the release of all hostages held in Gaza. The U.S. cast the sole vote against the resolution, with 13 members of the council voting for the resolution and one country, the U.K., abstaining.
The U.S. had also vetoed resolutions for humanitarian pauses in October and a ceasefire and hostage release in December. U.S. ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, called the most recent resolution “wishful and irresponsible,” arguing that a ceasefire would interrupt diplomatic efforts to pause the fighting, even though a ceasefire would achieve that very goal.
Other countries’ ambassadors decried the U.S. veto, saying that it will lead to more death and violence against Palestinians in Gaza — where the official death toll nears 30,000, with thousands more missing — and West Bank, and risk escalating conflict across the Middle East.
“The veto of this draft resolution is not only regrettable … but also absolutely reckless and dangerous, again shielding Israel even after it commits the most shocking crimes, while exposing millions of innocent Palestinian people to more untold horrors,” said Palestine ambassador Riyad H. Mansour in remarks in front of the council.
The U.S. has a long record of using its veto power to shield Israel from accountability. Since Israel was established in 1948 through an ethnic cleansing campaign, which Palestinians call the Nakba, the U.S. has rejected 34 out of 36 UN resolutions related to Palestine, according to an Al Jazeera analysis.
At the same time, the U.S. is continuing to send weapons to aid Israel’s destruction of Gaza and refusing to send funding to Gaza’s primary humanitarian aid group, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as the entire population of Gaza, including over a million children, is facing starvation and disease.
Indeed, the Government Media Office in Gaza warned on Tuesday that over 700,000 Palestinians in northern Gaza are on the verge of dying from starvation, due to Israel’s famine campaign that experts say is unprecedented in modern times.
Previous reports from international food experts have found that famine is spreading across the territory, with the vast majority of the world’s population currently experiencing famine currently located in Gaza. Israel is intensifying the crisis by blocking humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza even more harshly than in previous months, while the World Food Programme is being forced to pause aid deliveries in the north due to the dangerous conditions. Humanitarian groups have already had to reduce their operations due to Israel’s attacks which have killed many aid workers.
The hunger emergency has led to horrific conditions, with a large portion of young children facing life-threatening malnutrition and Palestinians forced to eat grass, weeds and leaves or find animal fodder to grind in attempts to survive.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 182 new monthly donors in the next 24 hours.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy