Photo credit OHCHR
Beijing/Tel Aviv/New York/Geneva: In the wake of the deployment of two of the largest United States carrier task forces to the Mediterranean after the eruption of war in Israel, Russian President Vladimir Putin has instructed the Russian Aerospace Forces to start patrolling the neutral zone over the Black Sea on the permanent basis.
When asked whether he was threatening the US, Putin replied, “…this is not a threat. But we will perform visual control, and weapons-based control over what is happening in the Mediterranean Sea”. He, though, minced no words saying, “Our MiG-31 aircraft carry the Kinzhal systems that, as is common knowledge, have a range of over 1,000 kilometres and can reach speeds of up to Mach 9”. Putin was in Beijing, where he also had a 3-hour-long meeting with the Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, today.
Significantly, unlike US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who squarely blamed Hamas for last night’s missile attack on Al Ahli Anglican Arab Hospital in Gaza City, Putin refrained from taking names but said it was a disaster. “I do hope that this will serve as a signal that this conflict must end as quickly as possible,” he said.
Just before his visit to Beijing, Putin had held a telephone marathon with the heads of Middle Eastern states. He said the impressions he got during conversations with the five regional leaders, that no one wants this conflict to continue or expand, or the situation to escalate.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as United States President Joe Biden today blamed Hamas for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza. “But there’s a lot of people out there who are not sure,” Biden said in Tel Aviv today.
In a statement to the nation, Netanyahu said today, “Yesterday evening, before the US President left for Israel, I presented him with concrete proof that it was Islamic Jihad, and not the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces], that had fired the missile that struck the hospital in Gaza. I directed our National Public Diplomacy Directorate and the IDF to disseminate this proof, and today the world knows the truth. It will also hear this from the UN Security Council”.
The Israeli Prime Minister termed the attack on the hospital as a “terrible war crime”. He said a rocket fired by a Palestinian terrorist misfired and landed on a Palestinian hospital. “The entire world was rightfully outraged. But this outrage should be directed not at Israel but at the terrorists,” he said.
It may be noted that Gaza’s de facto authorities have accused the Israeli military, who in turn held misfired rockets launched by Islamic Jihad militants towards Israel responsible. Adding dimension to the controversy, the United Nations Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland today called for an inquiry into the hospital strike. “I fear that we are at the brink of a deep and dangerous abyss that could change the trajectory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, if not of the Middle East as a whole,” he told the US Security Council in New York today.
Biden, meanwhile, today met Israel’s united war cabinet for a comprehensive discussion of Israel’s strategy in response to Hamas’ “brutal” terrorist attack and remarked, “In the wake of Hamas’s appalling terrorist assault — it was brutal, inhumane, almost beyond belief what they did — this cabinet came together and — standing strong, standing united.”
The US President reiterated his “steadfast” support for Israel and reaffirmed the US determination to provide the Israeli government with what it needs to protect its citizens. The leaders also discussed ongoing efforts to secure the release of hostages taken by Hamas – including Americans, as well as US efforts to facilitate the provision of necessary humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. Thereafter, while stating that civilians were not to blame and should not suffer for Hamas’s “horrific” terrorism, Biden announced today $100 million in humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank.
Meanwhile, Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in Geneva, that the full scale of the carnage in a massive strike at Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, which had patients, healthcare workers and families that had been seeking refuge in and around the hospital, was not yet known.
In New York, the US today vetoed a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution that would have called for “humanitarian pauses” to deliver lifesaving aid to millions in Gaza. US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the the US vetoed as “this resolution did not mention Israel’s right of self-defence.”
“Israel has the inherent right of self-defence as reflected in Article 51 of the UN Charter,” she said, noting that the right was reaffirmed by the Council in previous resolutions on terrorist attacks, “this resolution should have done the same.” While 12 of the Council’s 15 members voted in favour of the Brazilian-led text, one (United States) voted against it, and two (Russia, and the United Kingdom) abstained. Prior to the vote, two amendments proposed by Russia, calling for an immediate, durable and full ceasefire, and to stop attacks against civilians were rejected by the Security Council. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said the current draft “has no clear call for a ceasefire” and “will not help to stop the bloodshed”.
UK Ambassador Barbara Woodward said that her country abstained from the resolution as the text needed to be clearer on Israel’s inherent right to self-defence, and because it ignored the fact that extremist group Hamas, which controls Gaza, is using Palestinian civilians as human shields.
“They [Hamas] have embedded themselves in civilian communities and made the Palestinian people their victims too,” she said.
The Ukraine issue
In the meantime, Putin in Beijing today referred to his yesterday’s meeting with the Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban, where he categorically told Orban that if the Ukrainian side “really” wanted to negotiate, “it should not make any theatrical gestures but instead start by cancelling the presidential executive order prohibiting talks [with Russia]”.
Putin referred to “rumours” that Ukraine was “presumably” ready for negotiations now. “Several high-ranking officials in charge of foreign policy, who only recently spoke about inflicting strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield, have changed their tune and say that such issues should be decided through peaceful negotiations. It is a reasonable change, a shift in the right direction, … but it is not enough. Practical steps must be taken if there is a real desire to hold negotiations,” Putin said.
– global bihari bureau
