The US has blocked a Gaza ceasefire draft resolution at the United Nations Security Council – the fourth time it has used its veto power during the conflict to shield its ally, Israel.
Fourteen of the 15 Council members voted in favour of the draft, which demanded that the war in Gaza “must end immediately, unconditionally and permanently and all remaining hostages must be immediately and unconditionally released”.
Deputy US ambassador to the UN, Robert Wood, said the document “abandoned” the necessity for there to be “a linkage between a ceasefire and the release of hostages”.
Critics of the veto sharply rebuked the US, with France saying it “deeply regretted” the move.
The UNSC is composed of five permanent members which have veto power – and 10 which are elected.
This group proposed the draft resolution which also “rejected any effort to starve Palestinians”.
The vote was held as the UN warned that Palestinians were “facing diminishing conditions for survival” in parts of northern Gaza under siege by Israeli forces because virtually no aid has been delivered in 40 days.
Earlier this month, a UN-backed assessment said there was a strong likelihood that famine was imminent in areas of northern Gaza.
The Israeli military has said its six-week-long offensive targets regrouping Hamas fighters, and that it is facilitating civilian evacuations and supply deliveries to hospitals.
Ambassador Wood said passing the resolution would have sent a “dangerous message” to Hamas, the armed group at war with Israel, that “there’s no need to come back to the negotiating table”.
Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, said the resolution “was not a path to peace, it was a roadmap to more terror, more suffering and more bloodshed”.
“Many of you attempted to pass this injustice. We thank the United States for exercising its veto,” he added.
Hamas, meanwhile, accused the US of being “directly responsible” for Israel’s “genocidal war” in Gaza.
Reacting to the veto, China’s ambassador said people could not help but ask: “Do Palestinian lives mean nothing?”
France said international humanitarian law was being trampled and the only response should have been an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
The UK said it wanted to end the war, stop the suffering in Gaza and secure the immediate release of all hostages.
But the harshest criticism of the US came from outside the Council doors.
Human Rights Watch’s (HRW) UN director, Louis Charbonneau, accused Washington of “once again” using its veto power “to ensure impunity for Israel as its forces continue to commit crimes against Palestinians in Gaza”.
Israel rejects the accusations.
The current war broke out after Hamas gunmen burst through the border and attacked Israeli communities, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, and taking 251 into Gaza as hostages.
More than 43,920 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
