RAMALLAH/GAZA, Dec 10 (NNN-XINHUA) – The Palestinian Authority and Hamas, slammed yesterday, the U.S. veto on a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution, calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
The resolution failed to pass at a Security Council emergency meeting held late Friday, after the United States cast a veto and Britain abstained, while the other 13 UNSC members voted in favour of the proposal, handed in by the UAE and backed by more than 90 UN member states.
Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, denounced yesterday, the U.S. position as “aggressive and immoral, and a blatant violation of all humanitarian values and principles,” while thanking those member states that favour the resolution for “siding with justice, peace and human ethics.”
In a statement, he said, the move made the United States complicit with “war crimes committed by the Israeli occupation forces, against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Jerusalem.”
Palestinian Prime Minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, said in a statement yesterday that, the veto was “a disgrace and a new licence for the occupying Zionist regime to continue killing, destroying and displacing Palestinians from their own state.”
The veto “reveals the lie of concern for the lives of civilians, and that, what happened is an insult to the free people of the world, and a violation of the values of truth, justice, freedom, human rights, and all countries calling for human rights,” he noted.
Shtayyeh called on UN members to continue their efforts to stop the Israeli “aggression” and bring in food, medicine and fuel aid and restore the lifeline to the Gaza Strip that has been cut off for more than two months.
The Gaza-ruling Palestinian faction, Hamas, which Israel has announced at war with, described the U.S. administration as an “accomplice in the killing of the Palestinian people, through its political and military support for Israel.”
The movement thanked the countries that voted in favour of the draft resolution, calling on the international community to take serious and concrete steps to “stop the occupation’s massacres” in Gaza.
This comes, as the Ministry of Health in Gaza announced yesterday that, more than 70 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, in Israeli attacks during the last few hours.
The ministry said in a brief statement that, the aforementioned number of dead, along with more than 160 injured, were transferred to Al-Aqsa Hospital in the central Gaza Strip.– NNN-XINHUA
