US blocking UNSC action on Israel over Lebanon aggression

The United States is blocking Security Council action on Israel over Lebanon aggression, Lebanese special envoy Nouhad Mahmoud said.

"The impotence of the UN's most powerful body sent the wrong signal to small countries and the Arab world," said Mahmoud, who has come from Beirut to seek UN intervention on full-scale war Israel unleashed against Lebanon.

The US is blocking the UN vote at a time when at least 116 Lebanese civilians and several hundred people were killed in fresh waves of Israeli violence against Lebanon and indiscriminate attacks on Lebanese residential areas in the past week.

Lebanese officials said that Israeli air raids have inflicted at least dlrs 500 million damages on Lebanon.

"It's unacceptable from the US to block Security Council involvement because people are still under shelling, bombardment and destruction is going on... and people are dying," Lebanese special envoy told reporters in UN Headquarters in New York.

Qatar, which drafted a statement to be released by Security Council, received widespread support during closed Security Council consultations late Saturday for a press statement calling for an immediate cease-fire, restraint in the use of force, and the protection of civilians caught in the conflict.

Mahmoud said while innocent civilians are killed 'here we are impotent in having... some stand to address the situation'.

"It sends very wrong signals not only to the Lebanese people but to the Arab people, to all small nations that we are left to the might of Israel and nobody is doing anything," he said.

"We want a resolution. We want a cease-fire. We want very clear stand from the Security Council. But concession after concession arrived to the press release -- and even the press release was not possible to issue," Mahmoud complained.

"We have many reasons to expect much more from the Security Council," said Mahmoud.

"And from the United States? They were always supportive in the last 1 1/2 years, but when it comes to Israel it seems things change," he said.

Worth noting that Israel repeatedly violate Lebanon's sovereignty, air and sea, on a near daily basis, for which it has been asked repeatedly by the UN to stop doing so. Israel, shows no regard for international law, attacking Palestinian and Lebanese civilians and infrastructure. It does so knowing it has the best weapons given to it from the United States, and under the protection of the US veto at the UN Security Council where the US shoots down resolutions against Israel. Many international organizations have declared Israel to be in violation of International Humanitarian Law, Geneva Convention, organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty international, and others. The most recent public declaration that Israel has broken the Geneva Convention came days ago from the neutral country of Switzerland. The UN Human Rights Council two weeks ago also voted against Israel and agreed to investigate the Israel acts. Israel frames its aggressions as a defensive moves, without mentioning that it is an occupier and outlaw of international resolutions and law.