annashay 
EXACTLY a month ahead of her country’s independence day, the US representative to the UN Security Council was vetoing a resolution demanding, “an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza” to be respected by all parties, and the “immediate, dignified and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas and other groups”.
The draft resolution vetoed by the solitary US vote received 14 in favour. It also called for the “immediate and unconditional lifting of all restrictions on the entry and distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza, calling for safe and unhindered access for UN and humanitarian partners across the enclave”, said a UN release.
In what appeared to be a move coordinated with the veto, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the US was sanctioning four judges of the International Court of Justice for ‘targeting’ with arrest warrants Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Earlier, the US had sanctioned the ICJ prosecutor for the same ‘crime’.
These US actions came as the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, described Gaza as “worse than hell on earth”. In an interview to the BBC at the ICRC Headquarters in Geneva, she said “humanity is failing” as it watched the horrors of the Gaza war.
The systematic destruction of any and all infrastructure that supports human life is near complete.
Israel’s policy, backed by its US-led Western allies and the acquiescence of the regional Arab governments, has always been aimed at the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and its governing coalition leaders have been unequivocal in explicitly stating their military objectives.
The systematic destruction of any and all infrastructure that supports human life is near complete, with water, power, homes, schools, universities and even hospitals bombed to rubble. Of the number of functioning hospitals in Gaza, only two remain.
The UN has called for the protection of these last two hospitals, particularly providing emergency services to the Strip, which is being bombed and hit by missiles daily, causing dozens of casualties, young and old. The UN also says the percentage of malnourished children is rising by the day.
This malnourishment is due to the Israeli food blockade on Gaza. Israel has brushed aside all aid organisations’ protestations to introduce its own ‘food distribution’ points, where dozens of starving Palestinians, including women, have been killed by Israeli tank-mounted machinegun fire.
The Conservative member of the UK parliament, Kit Malthouse, defied his party’s pro-Israel policy to offer the most apt description of what is happening. Speaking in the Commons, he said Gaza has become “an abattoir where starving people are lured out through combat zones to be shot at”.
“If the situation were reversed, we would now be mobilising the British armed forces as part of an international protection force,” Mr Malthouse said, exposing Western hypocrisy and his own government’s inaction.
Adding another twist to the food crisis in Gaza is the Israeli prime minister’s confirmation — after Israeli defence sources had earlier told local journalists that accusations made by the opposition politician Avigdor Lieberman were correct — about the arming of a group that many believe comprises criminals.
Mr Lieberman, according to the BBC, told the state broadcaster that the prime minister had unilaterally approved the arming of the Abu Shabab clan and transferred weapons to it. “The Israeli government is giving weapons to a group of criminals and felons, identified with the Islamic State group.”
Sources in the know say the group is led by Yasser Abu Shahab, who was an IS commander, and is an Israeli intelligence asset. His band of about 300 men, according to the Israeli Occupation Forces, has been armed to “protect food trucks” trickling into Gaza. But sources on the ground say the group is doing the opposite in commandeering the trucks and looting the vital food supplies for the malnourished, starving Palestinians.
It is this one-sided ethnic-cleansing, being facilitated by the US and its envoy Steve Witkoff — who has been accused more than once of being economical with the truth after agreeing one thing with Hamas and then reneging on his promise and blaming the armed militant group — that may be impacting public opinion in Europe at least.
The public opinion is shifting, which is also reflected in the robust questioning of the Israeli Hasbara spin doctors in the media. These advocates for the Israeli cause are outraged even by some basic questions a few journalists are beginning to ask because they have had a free pass to spin their lies since October 2023.
The European government leaders are beginning to express unease, only in words and not deeds, in calling the Gaza situation intolerable and unacceptable but stopping well short of any concrete measures such as an arms embargo.
This rhetoric too is driven by the changing public mood reflected in a recent YouGov poll across Europe. The poll showed Israel as being viewed most unfavourably since they started polling on this issue in 2016. And Israel’s actions in Gaza are seen as disproportionate and unjustified.
Even then, President Trump is likely to be convinced his Gaza Riviera plan is on course and in the end the Palestinians will be displaced. With few friends in the Arab world, whose leaders generously opened up their cheque books for the US president and applied little, if any, pressure to secure an end to the genocide, the Palestinians seem to be on their own.
The (resource-starved) government of the ummah’s most potent military power may have co-sponsored the vetoed UN resolution, but its powerful elite queued up at the embassy gate for hours to be able to have the honour of celebrating US Independence Day inexplicably on June 4, a month earlier than July 4.
The ethnic cleansing in Gaza and, don’t forget, the West Bank will continue. The collective conscience of the people around the globe will not be able to stop it on its own. This is the world we inhabit.
The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
abbas.nasir@hotmail.com
Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2025
