UN votes to back Palestinian membership, prompting Israeli envoy to shred charter

The UN general assembly has voted overwhelmingly to back the Palestinian bid for full UN membership, in a move that signalled Israel’s growing isolation on the world stage amid global alarm over the war in Gaza and the extent of the humanitarian crisis in the strip. The move drew an immediate rebuke from Israel. Its envoy to the UN, Gilad Erdan, delivered a fiery denunciation of the resolution and its backers before the vote, and fed pages of the UN charter into a shredder. The Palestinian envoy, Riyad Mansour, highlighted that the vote was being held at a time when Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city that is the last haven for many people, faced attack from Israeli forces