Yet again, the US votes for 'brutal violence and collective punishment'

Nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than two million people are under threat of famine because of the sustained Israeli attacks on Gaza since October last year.

The last thing the Palestinians need right now is the apathy from the world powers.

Yet, as the UN security council was on the verge of passing a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on 21 Feb, the US voted against it. It is the third time it has done so.

This time, the US was the lone vote against the ceasefire resolution put forward on Tuesday by Algeria. 

Even the UK, the US' closest ally in Europe, did not veto the move, but abstained from voting, apparently pressured by the opposition politicians and people of the country. 

There were 13 votes in support of the resolution, including those of close allies of Washington, who insisted the humanitarian needs of Palestinians outweighed any reservations over the Algerian text.

This shows how adamant the US is, about keeping supporting Israel, which is facing charges of genocide at the International Court of Justice.

Washington was widely lambasted for using its veto again, at a time when Israel intensified its bombardment of Rafah in Gaza's south and threatened to unleash its ground operation in the same area unless all hostages were freed by 10 March.

On 14 October 2023, the Israeli army ordered more than one million people — half the population — to leave northern Gaza within 24 hours, in advance of an imminent military ground operation.

The humanitarian crisis intensified when Israel started striking the southern parts of Gaza where many Palestinians moved to save their lives.

The US move has been criticised all over the world.

"A vote in favour of this draft resolution is a support for the Palestinians right to life," the Algerian envoy to the UN, Amar Bendjama, told the council, The Guardian reports.

 "Conversely, voting against it implies an endorsement of the brutal violence and collective punishment inflicted upon them," he added.

The Algerian resolution also called for the implementation of provisional measures ordered in January by ICJ in The Hague, which instructed Israel to mitigate its offensive to protect civilians, lift impediments on the flow of aid into Gaza, and take action against Israeli politicians using genocidal language.

"Almost one month after the ICJ [ruling], signs of hope are still absent for improvement of the situation in Gaza," Bendjama said. "Silence … is not a viable option. Now is the time for action and the time for truth."

The situation in Gaza is so dire that even countries accused and criticised for making the lives of hundreds of thousands of people's lives miserable in other cases, reacted strongly.

Zhang Jun, China's envoy to the UN, expressed "strong disappointment and dissatisfaction" with the US, according to the Xinhua news agency.

"The US veto sends a wrong message, pushing the situation in Gaza into a more dangerous one," said Zhang, adding that objection to a ceasefire in Gaza is "nothing different from giving the green light to the continued slaughter".

Russia's Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenzia said the US veto marked "another black page in the history of the Security Council".

He accused the US of trying to play for time so that Israel could complete its "inhumane plans" for Gaza, namely to squeeze the Palestinians out of the territory and completely "cleanse" the enclave.

While the Arab world slammed the US ceasefire veto, its strongest ally in the region, Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry went one step ahead to stress the "need now more than ever to reform the Security Council to carry out its responsibilities in maintaining peace and security with credibility and without double standards".

The veto happened despite growing criticism of the Biden administration's continued military and political support for the Israeli offensive in Gaza from US voters.

The US has drafted an alternative resolution, which calls for a temporary ceasefire "as soon as practicable", and calls on Israel not to proceed with a planned offensive on Rafah, the southernmost Gazan city where more than a million Palestinians have sought refuge.

However, the US resolution is not likely to go to a vote for several days at least, and the timing of its third ceasefire veto is embarrassing for the US, as Washington seeks to build international solidarity in condemnation of Russia on the second anniversary of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.