US Vetoes UN Resolution Condemning Hamas’ Attacks on Israel and All Violence against Civilians

Palestinian boys wave their national flag as demonstrators clash with Israeli soldiers during a protest in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on October 18, 2023, following a strike which ripped through a Gaza hospital compound killing hundreds the day before. (AFP)
Palestinian boys wave their national flag as demonstrators clash with Israeli soldiers during a protest in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on October 18, 2023, following a strike which ripped through a Gaza hospital compound killing hundreds the day before. (AFP)
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US Vetoes UN Resolution Condemning Hamas’ Attacks on Israel and All Violence against Civilians

Palestinian boys wave their national flag as demonstrators clash with Israeli soldiers during a protest in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on October 18, 2023, following a strike which ripped through a Gaza hospital compound killing hundreds the day before. (AFP)
Palestinian boys wave their national flag as demonstrators clash with Israeli soldiers during a protest in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on October 18, 2023, following a strike which ripped through a Gaza hospital compound killing hundreds the day before. (AFP)

The United States vetoed a UN resolution Wednesday that would have condemned Hamas’ attacks against Israel and all violence against civilians and urged humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 12 votes in favor, the United States against and two abstentions.

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said after the vote that President Joe Biden is in the region engaging in diplomacy “and we need that diplomacy to play out.” She also criticized the resolution for not saying anything about Israel’s right to self-defense.

Before the vote on the resolution sponsored by Brazil, council members rejected two Russian amendments, one calling for a “humanitarian ceasefire” and the other condemning indiscriminate attacks on civilians and “civilian objects” in Gaza, which include hospitals and schools.

Brazil holds the Security Council presidency this month and its UN mission said the vote would be followed by an emergency meeting to discuss Tuesday's huge explosion and fire at a Gaza City hospital packed with patients, relatives and Palestinians seeking shelter. The Hamas-run health ministry said at least 500 died.

Russia, the United Arab Emirates and China called for the emergency session, at which UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo and UN Mideast envoy Tor Wennesland were to brief council members.

Israel and the Palestinians accused each other of being responsible for the hospital carnage. Hamas said it was from an Israeli airstrike. Israel blamed a misfired rocket by the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. Islamic Jihad denied any involvement.

The divided Security Council has been even more polarized since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and whether its five veto-wielding permanent members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — would support the Brazil resolution or abstain in the vote remained to be seen.

To be adopted, a resolution needs at least nine of the 15 council members to vote “yes” and no veto by a permanent member.

Biden was on a lightning trip to Israel to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to try to prevent the war’s expansion in the region and to open corridors for the delivery of aid to Gazans.

After the hospital blast, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas backed out of a meeting with Biden, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and King Abdullah II of Jordan, leading the Jordanians to cancel the meeting,

The 22-member Arab Group at the United Nations expressed “outrage” at the hospital deaths and called for an immediate ceasefire to avoid further Palestinian casualties, the opening of a corridor to safely deliver aid to millions in Gaza, and the prevention of any forced evacuation of people from the territory.

Egypt’s UN ambassador, Osama Mahmoud, told reporters that a summit will take place Saturday in Cairo as scheduled with regional leaders and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. The five permanent Security Council nations are also invited, he said.

Mahmoud said the summit will address the humanitarian crisis sparked by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, how to achieve a ceasefire, and whether “any serious attempt to have a political horizon” exists to tackle the issues blocking an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.



UN: More Than One Million Syrians Returned to Their Homes Since Assad’s Fall 

A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
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UN: More Than One Million Syrians Returned to Their Homes Since Assad’s Fall 

A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)
A boy looks out from inside a tent in al-Roj camp, Syria, on January 10, 2020. (Reuters)

More than one million people have returned to their homes in Syria after the overthrow of Bashar Al-Assad on Dec. 8, including 800,000 people displaced inside the country and 280,000 refugees who came back from abroad, the UN said on Tuesday.

“Since the fall of the regime in Syria, we estimate that 280,000 Syrian refugees and more than 800,000 people displaced inside the country have returned to their homes,” Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, wrote on the X social media platform.

“Early recovery efforts must be bolder and faster, though otherwise people will leave again: this is now urgent!” he said.

Last January, the UN's high commissioner for refugees urged the international community to back Syria's reconstruction efforts to facilitate the return of millions of refugees.

“Lift the sanctions, open up space for reconstruction. If we don't do it now at the beginning of the transition, we waste a lot of time,” Grandi told a press conference in Ankara, after returning from a trip in Lebanon and Syria.

At a meeting in mid-February, some 20 countries, including Arab nations, Türkiye, Britain, France, Germany, Canada and Japan agreed at the close of a conference in Paris to “work together to ensure the success of the transition in a process led by Syria.”

The meeting's final statement also pledged support for Syria's new authorities in the fight against “all forms of terrorism and extremism.”

Meanwhile, AFP reported on Tuesday that displaced people are returning to their neighborhoods in Homs, where rebels first took up arms to fight Assad's crackdown on protests in 2011, only to find them in ruins.

In Homs, the Syrian military had besieged and bombarded opposition areas such as Baba Amr, where US journalist Marie Colvin was killed in a bombing in 2012.

“The house is burned down, there are no windows, no electricity,” said Duaa Turki at her dilapidated home in Khaldiyeh neighborhood.

“We removed the rubble, laid a carpet” and moved in, said the 30-year-old mother of four.

“Despite the destruction, we're happy to be back. This is our neighborhood and our land.”

Duaa’s husband spends his days looking for a job, she said, while they hope humanitarian workers begin distributing aid to help the family survive.