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.”

  • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    Ukraine doesn’t have combatants using their hospitals as bunkers.

    Hamas does use hospitals as bunkers for their combatants. This is actually a war crime. The reason it’s a war crime to station combatants in a hospital is because it makes the hospital a valid military target, which is bad for the civilian population.

    But Hamas doesn’t give a shit about the civilian population and puts their combatants in hospitals anyway. The goal is propaganda so they can get donations and the people that only want to hear one side of the story aren’t going to care about “little details” about Hamas war crimes. The leaders of Hamas living in Qatar are actual billionaires because they’ve monetized the suffering of Palestinians. But then so has TikTok, and this intercept site linked above which is making emotional pleas to get in on the donation action.

    Grifting off of Palestinian suffering is getting to be a big business now.