Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, on Friday criticized the UN Security Council, after it approved a resolution calling for a truce in Gaza while again failing to condemn Hamas’ October 7 attack against Israel. The Council approved the resolution by a vote of 13 to zero. Both the United States and Russia abstained. “I thank President Joe Biden, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield and the US Mission to the UN for standing on Israel's side throughout the negotiations on the UN Security Council resolution and maintaining defined red lines. The resolution maintains Israel's security authority to monitor and inspect aid entering Gaza,” said Erdan. “It must not be ignored that the Security Council as a body has not yet condemned the October 7 massacre. This is a disgrace. The UN's focus only on the aid mechanisms for Gaza is unnecessary and disconnected from reality - Israel, in any case, allows the entry of aid on any necessary scale,” he added. “The UN should have focused on the humanitarian crisis of the hostages held in Gaza.” “The failures of the UN in the last 17 years have allowed Hamas to dig terror tunnels and manufacture missiles and rockets. It is clear that the UN cannot be trusted to monitor the incoming aid to the Gaza Strip,” concluded Erdan. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield criticized the fact that the resolution passed by the UN Security Council does not denounce Hamas over the October 7 atrocities. “Ultimately, while we are encouraged that the council spoke out on this humanitarian crisis we’re deeply disappointed — appalled, actually — that once again, the council was not able to condemn Hamas for the horrific terrorist attack [it perpetrated] on October 7,” she said. “I can’t understand why — why some council members are standing in the way and why they refuse to condemn these evils unequivocally,” added Thomas-Greenfield. “Why is it so hard to condemn Hamas for slaughtering young people at a concert, for butchering families alive, for the reports of widespread sexual violence. I will never understand why some council members have remained silent in the face of such evil.” Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said following the vote, “Israel will continue the war in Gaza until the release of all the hostages and the elimination of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Israel will continue to act according to international law, and will continue to screen all humanitarian aid to Gaza for security reasons.” “The Security Council's decision emphasizes the need to ensure that the UN becomes more efficient in transferring the humanitarian aid and to make sure that the aid reaches its destination and does not end up in the hands of Hamas terrorists,” added Cohen. Anne Bayefsky, the director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust and president of Human Rights Voices, commented on Friday’s vote and said, “The Biden administration has failed to veto - has allowed - the adoption of a UN Security Council resolution that failed to condemn Hamas for October 7th, failed to condemn Hamas for terror tunnels, failed to condemn Hamas for continuing rocket attacks, failed to name Hamas as the hostage-takers, failed to acknowledge Israel's legal right of self-defense, failed to condemn Palestinian terrorists for using rape and horrific sexual violence as a weapon of war, and repeatedly draws obscene moral comparisons between Israel and Hamas.” “The days of intense UN negotiations need to be contrasted with a different reality: the people of Israel are currently being attacked on at least three fronts - Gaza, Lebanon, and Palestinian Authority-controlled territories; hundreds of thousands of Israelis are internally displaced; even more Israeli civilians are regularly forced to take cover in shelters from incoming rockets; hundreds of thousands of Israelis are facing death every day on the front lines of an existential battle; regular life from industry to education has been upended; the lives of hundreds of thousands of family members (of victims, of the kidnapped, of the injured, of soldiers) have come to a standstill; the whole Israeli economy is disrupted with entire sections devastated; there is a desperate need for rehabilitation specialists for tens of thousands - in addition to the nationwide trauma of the hostages in the hands of monsters. And yet, according to the UN Security Council, the only ‘humanitarian situation’ is in the Gaza Strip.” “American Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told reporters on Thursday night that the United States would support the resolution, that is, had decided to throw Israel under the bus. She described the grotesquely one-sided operation this way: ‘The draft resolution is a very strong resolution that is fully supported by the Arab group that provides them what they feel is needed...’ Indeed. Except the full support of the Arab states, almost none of which even recognize the Jewish state, none of which is a free democratic state, and many of which are openly committed to violent antisemitism, is not a net positive for human rights. When Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and Palestinian terrorists and their UN entourage are on your side, maybe you're doing something wrong,” said Bayefsky. Related articles: UN chief calls for ceasefire, silent on freed hostages The new rules of engagement for the Trump administration Fmr. UN Amb. Gilad Erdan named MDA global president UN exhibit on global terror ignores terror against Israelis The resolution was originally scheduled for a Monday vote, but the vote was repeatedly postponed as members of the Council were grappling to find common ground on the wording. On Thursday night, the US indicated it could now support the proposal after securing changes it sought to its wording. That resolution had called for an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire" in the Gaza Strip, but Israel, backed by the United States has opposed the use of the term "ceasefire." (Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)
