Arab nations have linked hands with the Global South to challenge Israel and its western backers to end the bombing in a Gaza at the start of a rare two-day emergency debate at the UN general assembly.
In a fierce warning on Thursday the Iranian foreign minister said that if what he described as the genocide did not stop the US would “not be spared from this fire”.
The debate was occasionally unsettling for the US, as diplomats from across the globe challenged what they frequently described as Washington’s unqualified support for Israel since the Hamas attack that killed 1,400 people. Since then, according to the Palestinian authorities, more than 7,000 people have been killed in Gaza, with Israel pounding the territory with airstrikes.
The tone of the debate was set by its title – Illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. A large majority of nations in the assembly will probably condemn Israel if a non-binding vote is called on Friday.
The smaller 15-strong UN security council, including its five permanent veto wielding members, has been unable to reach agreement on the terms of a humanitarian pause to the hostilities.
On Wednesday Russia and the US vetoed each other’s resolutions. The US last week also vetoed a Brazilian resolution calling for humanitarian corridors into Gaza, on the grounds that it did not assert Israel’s right to self-defence.
A resolution passed by the security council carries more weight than one passed by the larger 193-country general assembly.
In a stark warning, Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said : “I say frankly to the American statesmen who are managing the genocide in Palestine that we do not welcome an expansion of the war in the region. But if the genocide in Gaza continues they will not be spared from this fire.” He insisted progress was being made to secure the release of hostages seized by Hamas.
The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, said that at least 80 Palestinian families had lost 10 or more of their relatives, and sometimes up to 45 members of the same families had been killed. “How can representatives of states explain how horrible it is that 1,000 Israelis were killed, and not feel the same outrage when 1,000 Palestinians are now killed every single day?” Mansour asked.
Ayman Hussein Abdullah Al-Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister, lambasted the language used by Israel saying “the Israeli government … called for wiping out Palestinians of the face of this Earth, called them animals unworthy of life”.
The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, showed the general assembly a brief video that he said showed a Hamas fighter trying to decapitate a man with a garden tool during the attack on 7 October this year.
Erdan, who has called for the resignation of the UN secretary general, António Guterres, insisted: “This is not a war with the Palestinians. Israel is at war with the genocidal Hamas terrorist organisation … Hamas do not care about the Palestinian people. Hamas has only one goal – to annihilate Israel.”
In a joint statement the foreign ministers of the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt and Morocco, on Thursday condemned the targeting of civilians and violations of international law in Gaza.
Their statement said the right to self-defence did not justify breaking the law and neglecting Palestinians’ rights. The Arab ministers also condemned forced displacement and collective punishment of the Palestinians in Gaza.
They criticised Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian areas and called for more efforts to implement a two-state solution to the decades-long conflict, an idea that has been the foundation of a long-moribund peace process.
“The absence of a political solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has led to repeated acts of violence and suffering for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples and the peoples of the region,” it said.
Support for Israel came from European governments. The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said EU leaders meeting in Brussels on Friday would send a clear signal of backing for Israel in what he called its self-defence efforts.
Qatar also said its work trying to negotiate the release of hostages held by Hamas was being hampered by the continued Israeli bombardment. The Qatari foreign affairs minister, Mohammed Al Khulaifi, said: “It’s a very, very, difficult negotiation … with the bombing continuing every day, our task becomes more difficult. But despite that we remain hopeful, we remain committed.”
Anger was also expressed at a new pitch by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He said “the Israeli attack on Gaza … has reached the level of a massacre, and the silence of the international community on what is happening is a shame for humanity”.
Erdoğan added that peace would “only be possible with the creation of an independent, sovereign and geographically integrated, Palestinian state, according to the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital”.
