During a United Nations Security Council meeting this week, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield launched a full-throated condemnation of Russia’s bombing of Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital on Monday. The attack was a part of a Russian bombing campaign that killed more than 30 Ukrainian civilians.
“We’re here today because Russia … attacked a children’s hospital,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “Even uttering that phrase sends a chill down my spine.”
Thomas-Greenfield went on to list a string of Russian attacks on other Ukrainian hospitals throughout the war. She described Russia’s aggression as a “campaign of terror” and labeled its attacks on civilian infrastructure as violations of international law. Representatives of other countries, such as the United Kingdom and France, echoed Thomas-Greenfield’s denunciations. (Russia’s ambassador denied responsibility for the Monday bombing.)
“I’m very glad the U.S. is coming out and so vocally condemning all of those actions,” said Jessica Peake, an international law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law, referring to Thomas-Greenfield’s comments toward Russia. “But at the same time, we don’t get any language anywhere near as strong as that when we’re talking about Palestinian hospitals, or Palestinian schools, or Palestinian children.”
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The U.S. has stood by Israel militarily and diplomatically as it has consistently attacked civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools, in Gaza since October 7, in a brutal campaign that the International Court of Justice has deemed a plausible genocide.
Nate Evans, a spokesperson for Thomas-Greenfield, told The Intercept that the ambassador “has condemned loss of Palestinian civilian lives many, many times in the Security Council,” while adding that the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine are “two very different wars.” Evans noted that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “unprovoked,” while Israel launched its assault in response to Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.
But there are also clear parallels in human rights abuses and violations of international law in each respective war, said Peake, who called the U.S. government’s handling of the conflicts “hypocritical.”
“What we see from the U.S. is a very stark difference in how they are choosing to handle its involvement in pushing for an end to those conflicts,” said Peake, who is also assistant director of UCLA’s Promise Institute for Human Rights.
U.S. officials have said they opposed ceasefire resolutions because they failed to stand by Israel’s apparent right to defend itself and argued diplomatic approaches would be more effective than public censures.
Strikes also hit a home in Deir al-Balah, which was inside Israel’s “humanitarian safe zone” where Palestinians have been told to flee, the Associated Press reported.
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