US vetoes UN resolution on protecting Palestinians

Arab News

June 2, 2018

Jeddah, Jun 2: The US vetoed on Friday an Arab-backed UN draft resolution calling for protection measures for the Palestinians that won backing from 10 countries at the Security Council.

China, France and Russia were among the countries that voted in favor of the draft put forward by Kuwait on behalf of Arab countries. Four countries abstained.

A draft resolution requires nine votes to be adopted in the 15-member council and no veto from the five permanent members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the US.

The Kuwait-sponsored draft resolution “deplored” and demanded a halt to “the use of any excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate force” by the Israeli military, while it also “deplored the firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip at Israeli civilian areas.”

Later, the UN Security Council voted down a US-written resolution condemning Hamas over the recent escalation of violence in Gaza.

The US was the only yes vote for the measure.

Earlier, Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s permanent representative in the UN, rejected the US amendment of the bid and said the move is “hostile to the Palestinian people.”

Mansour had earlier said that if the US vetoed the bid, “we will have other options, one of them is to go to the UN General Assembly, but so far we have to wait and see.”

The Gaza Strip has been witnessing an escalation of conflict with Israel since the start of the Palestinian rallies and protests called “the Great March of Return” on March 30, during which 118 Palestinians have been killed, including 13 children. Thousands of others were injured.

The participants in the rallies are calling for the right of return for the Palestinian refugees and putting an end to the 11-year Israeli blockade imposed on the coastal enclave since 2007 after Hamas came to power.

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Israeli forces invade southwestern Syria, set up checkpoint in Quneitra

News Network

November 24,2025

Israeli forces have pushed over the Syrian frontier, erecting a checkpoint and stopping vehicles in the southwestern city of Quneitra, in yet another breach of the Arab country’s sovereignty.

The violation took place on Sunday, when the troops made their way across the border, setting up the outpost near the Ain al-Bayda junction in northern Quneitra, Syrian outlets reported.

According to the al-Ikhbariya paper, an Israeli detachment positioned itself at the junction, halting cars and conducting searches.

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that three Israeli military vehicles then moved further into the northern countryside, deploying between the town of Jubata al-Khashab and the villages of Ofaniya and Ain al-Bayda. The agency added that a separate Israeli unit mounted a new incursion in the central region, approaching the villages of Umm Batina and al-Ajraf.

Residents said such activities have surged in recent months, pointing to Israeli advances onto farmland, leveling of extensive forested areas, arrests, and spread of mobile checkpoints.

The Israeli regime began markedly increasing its military aggression against Syria last year.

The escalation coincided with increasingly ferocious onslaughts throughout the country by the so-called Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Takfiri terrorist group, which the government of President Bashar al-Assad had confined to northwestern Syria. The HTS, however, managed to overthrow the government as the Israeli attacks would pummel the country’s civilian and defensive infrastructure.

Various reports have shown that, during the escalation, the regime conducted more than 1,000 airstrikes on the Syrian territory and over 400 ground raids into the south.

Following the collapse of the Assad government, Tel Aviv also widened its grip over the occupied Golan Heights by taking control of a demilitarized buffer zone, in defiance of a 1974 Disengagement Agreement. Earlier this month, senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the buffer zone, prompting expressions of alarm on the part of the United Nations.

The United States, the regime’s biggest ally, has, meanwhile, been fraternizing the HTS head Abu Mohammed al-Jolani amid the widely reported prospect of rapprochement with Tel Aviv.

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