As MPs in the mother of Parliaments scuppered any decent debate and vote on a ceasefire in Gaza with manoeuvrings by Kier Starmer to save face in the Labour party, Shetland Islands Council did have a debate and voted for a ceasefire.
The USA again used its veto at the UN Security Council with the UK abstaining.
The USA and the UK’s actions took place despite the reports from Tor Wennesland, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, who told ambassadors that “there is still no end in sight” as the war approaches its 140-day mark.
“No end to the trauma of those impacted by the horrors unleashed on 7 October. No end to the suffering and desperation the people in Gaza. No end to the regional turmoil.”
He described the humanitarian situation there as shocking, unsustainable and desperate.
Starved of funds, the UN agency serving Palestine refugees (UNRWA) has reached breaking point with Israel calling for calls for its abolition.
The suspension of aid by 16 donor countries (including the UK) totalling $450 million means that without new funding UNRWA operations across the Middle East will be severely compromised from March. It followed allegations by Israel that 12 UNRWA staffers had been involved in the horrific October 7th attacks, however, no evidence has been brought forward to prove that.
Tor Wennesland said that the situation was spiralling out of control. In addition to a ceasefire he called for a time-bound political framework to end the occupation and negotiate a two-State solution.
“These efforts must coalesce and accelerate if we are to emerge from this nightmare into a trajectory that can provide Palestinians and Israelis with the chance of lasting peace.”
Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), or Doctors Without Borders said he was “appalled” by the United States’ repeated use of its veto power to obstruct efforts to adopt the most evident of resolutions: one demanding an immediate ceasefire.
“We live in fear of a ground invasion” in Rafah, he said. “Attacks on healthcare are attacks on humanity,” he added, noting that while Israel claims Hamas is operating in hospitals, “we have seen zero independently verified evidence of this.”
Since 7 October, MSF has been forced to evacuate nine health facilities, and medical teams have added a new acronym to their vocabulary – “W.C.N.S.F., Wounded Child, No Surviving Family”.
More than 3/4s of Gaza’s population has been displaced, often many times. An international consortium of aid agencies issued a joint statement “Diseases are rampant. Famine is looming. Water is at a trickle. Basic infrastructure has been decimated. Food production has come to a halt. Hospitals have turned into battlefields. One million children face daily traumas.” Statement by Principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee – Civilians in Gaza in extreme peril while the world watches on: Ten requirements to avoid an even worse catastrophe
“We are calling on Israel to fulfil its legal obligation, under international humanitarian and human rights law, to provide food and medical supplies and facilitate aid operations, and on the world’s leaders to prevent an even worse catastrophe from happening.”
In Orkney, Shetland, and across Scotland, demonstrations will be held in support of the people of Gaza, and calling for an immediate ceasefire. The Orkney Vigil will take place on the steps of St Magnus Cathedral between 1 and 2 pm on Saturday 24th of February.
See also:
Fiona Grahame
Categories: Uncategorized
Currently, the conflict in Gaza has united all those seeking a cause to demonstrate their humanity publicly. Each weekend tens of thousands take to the streets to march in support of their Palestinian brothers and condemn Israel. Even the Shetland Islands Council took time out of their busy schedule, to debate the troubles in the Middle East.
Yet nobody over the last few years has raised even an eyebrow over the 16,000 deaths perpetrated by the Myanmar Government, the 13,000 killed in Sudan or the 500,000 + deaths resulting in the Syrian civil war.
Is this because in these conflicts Israel was not involved? The rest of the world appears to have a problem with the state of Israel. Indeed the UN has condemned Israel in 45 resolutions by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). This is more than any other country yet Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East with with strong and independent institutions that guarantee political rights and civil liberties for its population. Despite this, the country is always singled out for condemnation. Is there an undertone of antisemitism behind this?
I would be really interested to know how you define “civil liberties for all”. The idea that Israel has granted Palestinians “political rights and civil liberties” when what it has actually been doing is slaughtering, maiming and torturing them in the tens of thousands suggests that you haven’t been paying attention. I suggest you watch the documentary “Jews Step Forward” before saying anything else.
You obviously believe everything Hamas feeds you in the way of information. This is a terrorist organisation whose constitution, if you can call that, is to drive the Jews out of Israel and if possible, kill then all at the same time.
No doubt you probably could come up with some apologies for Hitler’s treatment of Eastern European Jews as well.
It’s atrocious so many Palestinian non-combatants, especially the children, were/are being prevented from accessing safety/sanctuary, not to mention deprived of food. Yet, Western politicians, especially U.S. Republicans, have gone into their ‘Christian’ mode by withholding help for literally starving Palestinian children.
There have been tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian non-combatants killed by Israeli assaults, largely the result of the decades-long Israeli occupation.
Normally there are rockets fired from Palestinian territory, intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile defenses, and Israel retaliates in their usual very-many-fold-measures way with smart bombs [etcetera] supplied by U.S. taxpayers, typically killing civilians or just school children.
This is Israel’s and the collective West’s business-as-usual perception thus inevitable non-intervention. Palestinians are considered disposable. Generally, Israel and Westerners, including our legacy news-media, have been getting accustomed to so many Palestinian deaths over many decades of violent struggle with Israel.
For quite some time, maybe even decades, they have been perceived thus treated as not being of equal value to those within Israel. This may help explain the relative poverty, with Palestinian children picking through the mountains of Israeli waste basically dumped on territory annexed or on the way to being annexed.
Thus their great suffering and deaths are somehow less worthy of our actionable concern.
Today [February 27] the UN said a quarter of Gazans are facing famine. Palestinian supporters and human rights activists around the world are quite understandably frustrated and even angry about so many nations’ political inertia and apparent apathy towards the Palestinian non-combatants’ worst nightmare.
However, the mainstream news-media, even the otherwise progressive outlets, are largely replacing daily Gazan deaths and suffering with relatively trivial news as leading stories. Sadly, that’s what most of those news outlets’ subscribers or regular patrons want. Still, to me that fact does not morally justify it.
Without doubt, growing Western indifference towards the mass starvation and slaughter of helpless Palestinian civilians will only further inflame long-held Middle Eastern anger towards us. Some countries’ actual provision, mostly by the U.S., of highly effective weapons used in Israel’s onslaught will likely turn that anger into lasting hatred that’s always seeking eye-for-an-eye redress.
Meanwhile, with each news report of the daily Palestinian death toll from unrelenting Israeli bombardment, I feel a slightly greater desensitization and resignation. I’ve noticed this disturbing effect with basically all major protracted conflicts internationally, including present Ukraine, ever since I began regularly consuming news products in 1988. And I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this nor that it’s willfully callous.
It has long seemed to me as a news consumer that the value of a life abroad is typically perceived according to the abundance of protracted conditions under which it suffers, especially during wartime, and that this effect can be exacerbated when there’s also racial contrast. Therefore, when that life is lost, even violently, it typically receives lesser coverage.