Palestine Condemns U.S. Veto of UN Gaza Ceasefire Resolution, Deems It Long Overdue

Palestine’s envoy to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, strongly condemned the United States on Wednesday for vetoing a UN Security Council resolution that called for an immediate ceasefire and the unrestricted delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Speaking before the Council, Mansour described the blocked resolution as a critical effort to stop genocide, end mass starvation, and begin efforts to alleviate Gaza’s deepening humanitarian catastrophe.

Mansour said the draft aimed to halt what he called the zionist entity’s punitive, illegal siege, which has left 2 million Palestinians, including 1 million children, on the brink of famine. He accused thez Zionist entity of engineering starvation to facilitate expulsion and annexation and urged the opening of all crossings to allow humanitarian organizations and UN agencies to deliver life-saving aid. He called out Zionist actions as war crimes and crimes against humanity, asking the Council, “Can the Council say anything about that?”

The Palestinian envoy criticized the Security Council’s inaction and announced plans to bring the matter before the UN General Assembly in the coming days. He called on individual member states to act independently and take concrete measures to stop the genocide in Gaza, invoking past global actions against apartheid as a call for bold leadership.

The U.S. has now vetoed five ceasefire resolutions since October 2023, as the Zionist entity continues its devastating offensive, which has left over 54,600 Palestinians dead, most of them women and children.