NOURNEWS- Iranian President Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi expressed disappointment at the United Nations Security Council's (UNSC) failure to pass a resolution on a humanitarian pause in the Gaza Strip amid the Israeli relentless bombardment due to the only veto cast by the United States.
President Raisi made the remarks in a meeting with South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor in Tehran on Sunday, and stressed that he sees no grounds for hope that the world body will maintain peace across the globe.
Iran’s president said the US is complicit in the crimes of Israel against the Palestinian people in the besieged enclave by sending military equipment to the occupied territories.
He added, Washington has also blocked a UN Security Council draft resolution in condemnation of the Zionist regime’s atrocities towards Palestinians.
“So, there is no longer any hope for the Security Council to play a role in maintaining global peace,” Raisi argued.
Washington on Wednesday vetoed a UNSC resolution that would have condemned Hamas’ military operation against Israel while calling for a pause in the fighting to allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza. The US was the sole vote against the resolution, with 12 members voting in favor and Russia and the United Kingdom abstaining.
Hours after the Hamas military operation against Israel on October 7, US officials promised ‘rock-solid and unwavering’ support to its closest ally in the Middle East. Washington, which provides about $3bn in annual military aid to Israel, has ordered the movement of military ships and aircraft closer to Israel as a show of support. Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of the United States foreign assistance since World War II.
President Joe Biden has pledged unwavering support for Israel as its military pummels Gaza with bombardment. He stated that Washington will provide Tel Aviv with everything it needed.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has also said Washington would provide munitions to Israel. The Pentagon chief has also announced the deployment of the second aircraft carrier “to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts toward widening this war following Hamas’s attack”. In the eastern Mediterranean, the carrier USS Eisenhower and its accompanying ships will join the USS Gerald R. Ford.
And, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken added that Washington will never falter from its support for Israel.
Earlier on Sunday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian stated that the United States is waging a war on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip through Israel, and further cautioned that the current status in West Asia resembled a powder keg which could spiral out of control.
Referring to Biden’s visit to Tel Aviv, the top diplomat said that it is a “bitter and unfortunate reality” that the American leader was quick to pay an extraordinary wartime visit to the occupied territories and voiced support for the Zionist regime’s assault against hospitals, mosques, churches and residential areas.
It’s a great shame that the American president announced that the US would dispatch hundreds of planes, ships and trucks filled with military equipment to the occupied territories to support the mass murder that Israel is committing in Gaza but has managed to coordinate plans for only 20 trucks carrying humanitarian aid to enter the besieged enclave, he added.
“So, the Israeli regime has waged a proxy war against Palestinians,” the minister concluded.
Gaza has been hit by a relentless barrage of Israeli fire following an attack by the Hamas fighters on October 7, which Israel confirms killed at least 1,400 people and wounded over 5,000 others. The group has announced it was in response to the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem and Israeli settlers’ growing violence against Palestinians.
Nearly 7,500 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip against the occupied territories during a fortnight of Palestinian-Israeli conflict aggravation, according to the press service of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Israel’s military campaign since has killed at least 4,700 Palestinians, including over 1,800 children and at least 1,000 women, with more than 16,000 wounded, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health on Sunday.
The ministry has also received 1,450 calls concerning missing people believed to be under the rubble, 800 of whom are children.
Israel's relentless bombing of Gaza has damaged half of the besieged enclave's residential units and displaced 70 percent of the population, Palestinian officials have announced on Sunday.
According to the local government's media office, around 165,000 residential units were damaged, with at least 20,000 of them completely destroyed or made unfit for habitation.
Israel’s military has also ordered 1.1 million people living in Northern Gaza to evacuate their homes, amid signs it is set to ramp up its offensive. The bombing, as well as enforced displacement orders by the army, has pushed 1.5 million people out of their homes.
The UN has warned it is “impossible for such a movement to take place without devastating humanitarian consequences" as hospitals in the besieged territory are "on the brink of collapse".
Gaza is one of the most densely populated places on Earth, where some 2 million people live in an area of 140 square miles. It has been almost completely cut off from the rest of the world for nearly 17 years. More than half of its population lives in poverty and is food insecure, with nearly 80% of its population relying on humanitarian assistance.
Human rights groups have stressed that depriving an occupied population of necessities is a war crime. Palestinian health officials have warned Gaza is rapidly running out of water and electricity, and the population faces severe shortages of food and medicine. They say several hospitals in the besieged territory are under constant bombardment and facing imminent shutdown due to a lack of fuel.
The Gaza Health Ministry has announced at least 10 hospitals in the Gaza Strip have stopped working due to Israeli shelling and fuel shortages, while the regional director of the World Health Organization (WHO) telling Al Jazeera at least 20 out of the 35 hospitals in the coastal enclave are no longer functioning.
Five UN agencies have warned that the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is "catastrophic", calling for more international help as conditions deteriorate in the densely populated besieged enclave.
"Gaza was a desperate humanitarian situation before the most recent hostilities," the UN agencies said in a joint statement on Saturday, adding, "It is now catastrophic. The world must do more."
"More than 1.6 million people in Gaza are in critical need of humanitarian aid," added the statement, which was signed by the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN children's agency (UNICEF), the World Food Program (WFP), the UN development agency (UNDP), and the world body's population fund, UNFPA.
Tehran says the history of the apartheid regime is full of assassinations, massacre, torture and killing of Palestinian kids, and described Tel Aviv regime's atrocities and massacre of Palestinian women and children as indicative of the crimes of Zionists. Iranian officials say the Tel Aviv regime has been struggling for more than 70 years to exit its identity crisis which has been mixed with genocide, plunder, forced displacement and scores of other inhumane moves.
NOURNEWS