Netanyahu Rejects UN Ceasefire Resolution, Says Hostages Still In Gaza Must Be Returned Or The Bombings Will Continue
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is saying no deal to the ceasefire compromise proposed by the United Nations (UN) Security Council, sparking fresh conflict between Israel and the United States.
Unless Hamas releases every last Israeli hostage still in Gaza, Netanyahu says he will not agree to any proposed ceasefire, no matter the position the U.S. takes on the matter.
In an historic first, the U.S. abstained from voting on the UN Security Council’s ceasefire resolution, which many say means the Biden regime is turning its back on Israel.
Congress, meanwhile, just passed a behemoth spending bill that includes $14 billion in additional U.S. aid for Israel, as well as the defunding of UNRWA, the Palestinian aid arm of the UN.
Netanyahu disapproves of the compromised hostage deal and demand that Israel immediately withdraw all troops from Gaza as proposed by the UN. The fact that the U.S. abstained from the vote “attests to the damage done by the UN Security Council’s resolution,” Netanyahu said.
State Department spokesman rebuffs Netanyahu’s claims
In a statement, Matthew Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, contradicted Netanyahu’s claims. According to Miller, Hamas prepared its response to Israel’s proposal before the UN vote.
What Netanyahu is saying is “inaccurate in almost every respect and unfair to the hostages and their families,” Miller added.
To show his disapproval, Netanyahu threatened to cancel the planned visit of a senior Israeli delegation to Washington in the event that the U.S. failed to veto the UN resolution. When the U.S. abstained, Netanyahu followed through by cancelling the visit, which was to be attended by Israeli national security advisor Tzachi Hanegbi and strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer.
The visit was scheduled for the purpose of discussing how Israel might avoid conducting a full-scale ground invasion of Rafah, the last remaining stronghold in the Gaza Strip where hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees are now living in tents.
The canceled trip suggests that Netanyahu fully intends to launch a ground invasion of Gaza, no matter what the UN or anyone else says. Analysts says the U.S. abstention marks the first “empirical data point” that the allyship between the U.S. and Israel is eroding.
Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant did still meet with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the Pentagon this week to beg for more weapons and ammunition from U.S. stockpiles. Austin opened that meeting with something that neither Gallant nor his boss Netanyahu wanted to hear.
“In Gaza today, the number of civilian casualties is far too high, and the amount of humanitarian aid is far too low,” Austin said.
Despite months of expressed opposition to Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza, the Biden regime has continued to provide Israel with a steady supply of weapons and ammunition, which the Zionist state has used to kill some 32,000 people in Gaza, most of them women and children.
After the meeting between Gallant and Austin, another U.S. official stated that the hope is for negotiations to lead to the release of the roughly 130 hostages who Israel claims are still being held in Gaza.
Austin told Gallant that Israel should find an “alternative to a full-scale and perhaps premature military operation” in Rafah to avoid excess civilian casualties. The Biden regime emphasized that it supports Israeli military action in Rafah just so long as it is not a full-scale ground assault.
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