Congressional fight against human shields stops at UN
Despite bipartisan agreement on sanctioning Hamas and Hezbollah for their use of human shields, not all lawmakers are willing to take the battle to the UN.
Congress is overwhelmingly willing to sanction Hamas and Hezbollah officials who use human shields — but isn’t quite ready to take the fight to the United Nations.
When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee advanced Texas Republican Ted Cruz’s STOP Using Human Shields Act last week, it stripped language requiring the Donald Trump administration to push for a UN Security Council resolution that would place multilateral sanctions on terrorist groups using human shields.
An aide to committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told Al-Monitor that some members of the committee had “concerns about prospectively endorsing a United Nations Security Council resolution that had not yet been finalized.”
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley called on the Security Council to address Hamas and Hezbollah’s use of human shields in April. It was not immediately clear whether a new resolution is actually in the works as Haley’s office did not respond to Al-Monitor’s request for comment.
