HAMAS has condemned the US veto in the UN Security Council resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza as ‘blatant complicity and active involvement in the genocide being perpetrated by the Zionist occupation against the Palestinian people’.
The movement said the decision amounted to a green light for Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to continue its massacres and destruction in Gaza.
Hamas thanked the ten states that submitted the resolution and urged international bodies to increase pressure to stop Israel’s campaign.
On Thursday evening, Washington blocked a draft resolution that had the support of 14 out of 15 Council members, including all ten elected members.
Algeria’s representative to the Security Council, Amar Benjamaa, denounced the Council’s paralysis. ‘The Security Council has once again failed to protect the Palestinians.
‘What a disgrace, what a disgrace that we cannot act, while genocide unfolds before us,’ he said.
As the UN deadlock persists, senior Israeli officials are openly discussing the colonial reordering of Gaza.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich described the territory as a potential ‘real estate bonanza’, boasting that discussions were under way with the United States to divide the strip after the war.
Speaking at an event in Tel Aviv, he declared: ‘A business plan is on President Trump’s table. We’ve done the demolition phase. Now we need to build.’
Trump himself had earlier floated the idea of the US taking a ‘long-term ownership position’ in Gaza, describing it as the potential ‘Riviera of the Middle East’.
Smotrich went further, saying: ‘We paid a lot of money for this war, so we need to divide how we make a percentage on the land marketing later.’
Smotrich already holds authority over settlement planning in the occupied West Bank.
In August, he unveiled a blueprint to annex around 82 per cent of the territory, describing the aim as securing ‘maximum land with minimum Arabs’.
The plan was condemned internationally as a roadmap for annexation and ethnic cleansing.
- The Palestinian Telecommunications Company announced on Thursday that fixed internet and landline services have been restored in Gaza and northern Gaza, despite severe risks to repair crews working under constant Israeli attacks.
The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority confirmed that services had been cut a day earlier after Israeli strikes damaged critical network routes during the ongoing assault.
Since Israel began its genocidal campaign against Gaza on 7 October 2023, telecommunications and internet links have been repeatedly disrupted across the territory.