The UN Security Council met in an emergency session again after four failed efforts to reach an agreement on a ceasefire resolution.
Social media users worldwide have called out Israel for its propaganda after its ambassador to the United Nations was seen wearing a yellow star on his chest at the UN Security Council on Monday.
“Palestinians don’t have to resort to theatrics to show the very real injustices they face under the brutal Israeli settler colonial state. But war criminals have all the time in the world for nonsense like this,” one user wrote on X, referencing Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan’s act.
Another user described the Israeli envoy’s stunt as ironic as Gazans are living in an open-air concentration camp.
“The irony. These were placed by Nazis to Jewish people in concentration camps. Gaza is an open-air concentration camp. Just like the Nazis, Israel has tagged all Palestinians as terrorists and inferior people and placed them in a land they can’t escape,” the user posted.
“Israel plays the victim,” the social media account also added.
During the address, Erdan and his accompanying delegation placed a yellow star on their suits, stating, “We will wear this star, until you condemn the atrocities of Hamas and demand the immediate release of our hostages.”
“We walk with a yellow star as a symbol of pride, a reminder that we swore to fight back to defend ourselves.”
Addressing the stars, political analyst Michael Stephens said: “A few days ago I wrote how, from the outside, Israel’s government just looks a bit schlock. Can you ever imagine Abba Eban pulling a stunt like this? Gilad Erdan seems to have forgotten he’s no longer in the Student Union.”
Meanwhile, Chairman of Yad Vashem and Israeli official, Dani Dayan said it was a dishonour to the victims of the Holocaust.
“We were sorry to see the members of the Israeli delegation to the UN wearing a yellow patch. This act dishonours both the victims of the Holocaust and the State of Israel. The yellow patch symbolises the helplessness of the Jewish people and being at the mercy of others. Today we have an independent country and a strong army. We are masters of our destiny. Today we put a blue-white flag on the lapel, not a yellow patch.”
Four failed UN efforts
The UN Security Council emergency session on Monday follows four failed efforts to reach an agreement to end the hostilities in Gaza. The UAE and China called for the emergency meeting after Israel expanded its ground operations into Gaza over the weekend.
In his address, Erdan attempted to liken Hamas to the Nazis, referencing widely debunked claims that have emerged since the Palestinian group’s unprecedented Al Aqsa Flood operation, in which it managed to infiltrate into the occupied territories by air, land and sea.
On Monday President and Founder of United Hatzalah of Israel Eli Beer claimed that his team found a baby “cooked in an oven” by Hamas. However, that allegation has been discredited by several journalists, including an Israeli Haaretz journalist, who said there is no evidence of such an incident.
“Where did the story of the oven come from? Eli Bir, the president of the Hatzala organization, spoke yesterday at a conference of the Jews in the Republican Party in Las Vegas held over the weekend,” Chaim Levinson, the Haaretz journalist, stated.
Levinson accused Beer of thinking about the money and telling a story that did not exist.
Since the start of the war, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have killed at least 8,306 Palestinians, including 3,457 children—who represent 40% of the figure. He said the devastating conditions called for international communities and organisations to unite.
At the address on Monday, Lisa Doughten, senior UN humanitarian official from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), stressed the need for a pause in the fighting and said civilians in Gaza are “living under unimaginably traumatic conditions.”
“They [Gazans] have now endured a siege and continuous bombardment for 23 days. According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, more than 8,000 people have been killed […] tens of thousands more have been injured,” Doughten stated.
“There is nowhere safe for patients to go, and for those on life support and babies in incubators, moving would almost certainly be a death sentence,” she added.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday rejected calls for a ceasefire after Hamas released a video of women captives in Gaza who lashed out at Tel Aviv for their failure to release them.
“You had to free us all and instead we are diving in your political, security, military chaos, because of the mess you made on October 7, because there was no army there,” one of the three captives said.
She added: “You are killing us, you want to kill us all. You want to find a way to kill us all. It’s not enough that you killed everyone[…] free us all.”
In a press briefing shortly after, Netanyahu described the video as “psychological propaganda” and rejected calls for a ceasefire, declaring instead the start of the second stage of the war.
