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The United States vetoes a UN-backed resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, as ICJ hearings continue.
Here’s how things are going on Wednesday February 21, 2024:
Fighting and humanitarian crisis
- Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, said the Israeli army bombed a shelter housing MSF staff in al-Mawasi, near Khan Younis in southern Gaza.
- In the 24 hours between Monday and Tuesday afternoon, 103 Palestinians were reported killed and 142 injured by Israeli attacks on Gaza, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
- The World Food Program said it had suspended food deliveries to isolated northern Gaza due to attacks and the breakdown of civil order in the area. The weakening of aid operations threatens to deepen misery across the territory, where Israel’s air and ground offensive has killed more than 29,000 Palestinians.
Regional tensions and diplomacy
- The United States vetoed an Arab-backed and widely supported UN resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Israel’s war on Gaza.
- Before the vote, Algerian Ambassador to the UN, Amar Bendjama, said: “A vote in favor of this draft resolution is support for the Palestinian right to life. Conversely, voting against implies support for the brutal violence and collective punishments inflicted on them.”
- China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun said the U.S. veto “stifles” an “overwhelming consensus” among U.N. Security Council members on a ceasefire in Gaza.
- Separately, South Africa has argued before the United Nations’ highest court that Israel is responsible for apartheid against the Palestinians and that Israel’s occupation of land sought for a Palestinian state is “inherently and fundamentally illegal.” “. Israel rejects such claims.
- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has called the looting of homes in Gaza by Israeli soldiers a “symptom of genocide and ethnic cleansing.”
- And in Yemen, Houthi rebels claimed to have struck an Israeli cargo ship, the MSC Silver, in the Gulf of Aden, near the entrance to the Red Sea, with a number of missiles.
In today’s session, Amb. Dr. Riyad Mansour condemned the Security Council’s failure to call for a #ceasefire In #Gaza “By the time this session ends, more than 25 #Palestinians will die because of the Council’s inaction, that means more babies will be murdered. @AlgérieUN @UN #UNSC pic.twitter.com/J9d0LT3bvs
– State of Palestine (@Palestine_UN) February 21, 2024
Violence in the occupied West Bank
- Israeli forces destroyed infrastructure and fired live ammunition in Jenin, as raids on dozens of homes continued in the occupied West Bank city, according to the Palestinian Wafa news agency.
- The Israeli military said it targeted a “terrorist cell” in an airstrike in Jenin, killing three people. Palestinian armed groups said they responded by using explosive devices against Israeli military vehicles.
- Israeli forces also arrested a minor in the town of al-Khader, south of Bethlehem.
