After the US vetoed three previous resolutions, the United Nations security council voted on Monday to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza during the remaining weeks of Ramadan. The UN resolution was approved after Joe Biden’s administration dropped its veto threat and lifted its diplomatic cover for Israel, at least temporarily, by abstaining from the vote.

Has Biden finally decided to use his leverage over Israel to stop its devastating war in Gaza, which has killed more than 32,000 people, the majority of them women and children and displaced over 75% of the population? It doesn’t seem so: on the same day that the US abstained on the UN ceasefire resolution, allowing it to pass, the Biden administration inexplicably declared that Israel has not violated international law or blocked humanitarian aid from reaching desperate people in Gaza.

It’s astounding that the US could make this declaration a week after the UN’s global authority on food security found that famine is imminent in northern Gaza – where 1.1 million people, nearly half of Gaza’s population, are facing catastrophic malnutrition and shortages of food. Since December, humanitarian groups and UN officials have raised the alarm about Israel’s policy of intentionally starving Gaza and the potential for widespread famine. But the Biden administration largely ignored these warnings, and continued to send weapons to Israel despite US laws that prohibit shipping arms to allies that obstruct aid.

“We have not found them to be in violation of international humanitarian law, either when it comes to the conduct of the war or when it comes to the provision of humanitarian assistance,” Matthew Miller, a US state department spokesperson, said at a press conference on Monday. Miller confirmed that Israel, along with six........

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