IRAN’S foreign minister has censured Washington for vetoing, for the third time, a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said the ‘diplomatic catastrophe of the century’ had taken place and the United States remains responsible for Israel’s savage campaign in Gaza since early October.
‘Continued veto by the US administration clearly creates liability for the White House for the forged Israeli regime unceasing genocide in Gaza and war crimes in the West Bank, Palestine. The world must hold the US accountable,’ the Iranian minister wrote in a post on X on Wednesday.
The United States used its veto power at the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday to block the draft resolution prepared by Algeria.
The draft rejected the ‘forced displacement of the Palestinian civilian population’ and urged ‘all parties to comply with international law’.
Representatives of 13 countries at the 15-member Security Council voted in favour. Britain abstained.
The United States vetoed similar draft resolutions in October and December.
Washington has supplied the Israeli regime with more than 10,000 tons of military equipment over the past months of hostilities in Gaza.
Condemnations have poured in from across the world. Countries such as China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and even Washington’s close allies, including France and Slovenia, have denounced the veto.
The Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour has said the move was ‘absolutely reckless and dangerous’.
‘The message given today to Israel with this veto is that it can continue to get away with murder,’ he said in a statement to the Security Council.
Separately, Nasser Kan’ani, the spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, condemned the veto.
Kan’ani said: ‘The US measure … proved to the world once again that the US is not only not part of the solution to the crisis and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, but is the most important factor in the continuation of the crisis and the cause of its expansion to the region.’
Kan’ani also stated: ‘The veto clearly confirms Iran’s accurate assessment since the beginning of the ongoing crisis in Gaza that the US is the main director of the war and the one preventing the end of genocide and the killing of Palestinian children and women in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.’
The uncalculated measures, Kan’ani said, by the US at the Security Council and its repeated use of the veto power have endangered global peace and made the United Nations unable to fulfil its main objective of protecting international security.
‘This has weakened the trust of governments and nations in the UN role in guarding international peace and security,’ the Iranian official said.
- UN staff members who helped evacuate critically wounded patients from Nasser Hospital in the Gaza Strip have described ‘appalling’ conditions in the territory’s second-largest medical facility, saying it has turned into a ‘place of death’.
‘The conditions are appalling. There are dead bodies in the corridors. Patients are in a desperate situation,’ said Jonathan Whittall, senior humanitarian affairs officer at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory.
‘This has become a place of death, not a place of healing,’ he added.
Whittall, who took part in evacuation missions along with teams from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) on February 18th and 19th, raised concern about conditions of dozens of patients and staff who remain trapped inside the hospital amid intensified Israeli bombardment of the area in a video posted on X.
The UN health agency issued a statement on social media on Tuesday morning, saying its staff managed to transfer 32 critical patients, including two children, out of the hospital on Sunday and Monday.
There are still an estimated 130 sick and injured patients and at least 15 doctors and nurses inside the facility, the WHO said, warning that the conditions inside the facility are ripe for the spread of disease.
Medical authorities in the Gaza Strip say at least eight patients have lost their lives at the hospital in the southern part of the territory as oxygen supplies, fuel, water, and electric power were cut off from the entire medical complex.
Navigating through pitch-black corridors with flashlights, rescuers managed to locate patients despite the backdrop of gunfire.
‘You can think about the worst situation ever. You multiply that by 10 and this is the worst situation I have seen in my life,’ said Julio Martinez, a member of WHO’s staff, emphasising there were ‘patients everywhere’.
The global health agency, OCHA, and the PRCS said efforts were underway to evacuate further patients.
Gaza hospitals have been overwhelmed by more than four months of Israel’s bombardment of the territory.
Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis is now the ‘backbone of the health system in southern Gaza’, according to WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who said he was ‘alarmed’ by reports from there.
Patients have died at Nasser Hospital as Israeli raids have cut off power.
The Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip says four patients have died due to lack of oxygen at a medical complex in southern part of the besieged coastal territory.
According to reports, despite the critical situation, doctors and nurses are urging the hospital to resume its functions instead of seeking evacuation.
Dr Thaer Ahmad, a US-based emergency physician who spent several weeks volunteering at the Nasser Hospital in January, said: ‘They’re asking, actually, not to be evacuated from the hospital, but for the hospital to function, for the lights to be turned back on and for the medicine they need to treat the patients that remain.’
WHO described the dismantling and degradation of the Nasser Hospital as a ‘massive blow’ to Gaza’s health system.
The Gaza Health Ministry appealed to all international institutions to intervene quickly to save the patients and staff at the Nasser Medical Complex before it was too late.
Khan Younis has been the main target of Israel’s ground offensive for weeks. The regime now says its forces will soon raid the overcrowded southern-most city of Rafah.
The town, once declared a ‘safe zone’ by the regime, is currently home to about 1.5 million people who have been forcibly displaced.
Since the start of its latest aggression in October, the Tel Aviv regime has killed over 29,300 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the territory.
Nearly 70,000 other individuals have sustained injuries as well.
Israel has also imposed a ‘complete siege’ on the coastal sliver, cutting off fuel, electricity, food, and water.
