Israel-Hamas war: US opposes UN ceasefire resolution

The United States on Wednesday rejected a UN Security Council resolution on a cease-fire in Gaza, drawing criticism of the Biden administration for once again blocking international action aimed at ending Israel’s war with Hamas.

The 15-member council voted on a resolution proposed by 10 non-permanent members that called for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in the 13-month conflict and separately demanded the release of the hostages.

Only the US voted against, using its veto power as a permanent member of the council to block the resolution.

Robert Wood, the US deputy ambassador to the UN, said Washington had made it clear it would support only a resolution that explicitly calls for the immediate release of the hostages as part of the ceasefire.

“A lasting end to the war must come with the release of the hostages. These two urgent goals are inextricably linked. This resolution abandoned that necessity, and for that reason the United States could not support it,” he said.

Wood said the US had sought a compromise, but the text of the proposed resolution would have sent a “dangerous message” to the Palestinian militant group Hamas that “there is no need to go back to the negotiating table”.

Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed nearly 44,000 people and displaced nearly the enclave’s entire population at least once. It was launched in response to an attack by Hamas-led fighters that killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages in Israel on October 7, 2023.

Members harshly criticized the US for blocking the resolution put forward by the council’s 10 elected members: Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and Switzerland.

“It is deeply regrettable that, because of the veto, this council has once again failed in its responsibility to maintain international peace and security,” Malta’s UN ambassador Vanessa Frazier said after the vote failed, adding that the text of the resolution “was by no means a maximalist one”.

“It was the bare minimum to begin to address the desperate situation on the ground,” she said.
Food security experts have warned that starvation is imminent among Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.

US President Joe Biden, who leaves office on January 20, has offered Israel strong diplomatic support and continued to supply weapons for the war while trying unsuccessfully to negotiate a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which would see the hostages released in exchange for the detention of the Palestinians. of Israel.

After blocking previous resolutions on Gaza, Washington abstained in March from a vote that would have allowed for a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire.

A senior US official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity ahead of Wednesday’s vote, said Britain had proposed new language that the US would have supported as a compromise but had been rejected by members. elected.

Some members were more interested in a US veto than compromising the resolution, the official said, accusing US adversaries Russia and China of encouraging those members.

French Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere said the resolution rejected by the US “very firmly” calls for the release of the hostages.

“France still has two hostages in Gaza and we deeply regret that the Security Council was not able to make this request,” he said.

China’s ambassador to the UN, Fu Cong, said that every time the United States has exercised its veto to protect Israel, the number of people killed in Gaza has steadily increased.

“How many more people have to die before they wake up from their pretended slumber?” he asked.

“Insisting on a precondition for a ceasefire is tantamount to giving the green light to continue the war and tolerating continued killing.”

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, said before the vote that the text was not a resolution for peace, but was “a resolution to appease” Hamas.

“History will remember who stood by the hostages and who abandoned them,” Danon said.

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