The United States on Friday vetoed a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. While 13 of the Security Council members voted in favour of the draft resolution, put forward by the UAE, Britain abstained from voting.
Expressing disappointment at the US veto, UAE deputy ambassador Mohamed Abushahab saidthat the Security Council is growing isolated and "appears untethered" from its mandate to ensure international peace and security. Supporters of the resolution warned of more civilian deaths as Israel continues to pound the enclave in its fight against Hamas. The vote left Washington diplomatically isolated in the 15-member council.
Israel's military campaign has killed more than 17,400 people in Gaza 70 per cent of them women and children and wounded more than 46,000, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.
Defending its decision, US deputy ambassador Robert Wood declared that halting military action would allow Hamas to continue to rule Gaza and "only plant the seeds for the next war." "Hamas has no desire to see a durable peace, to see a two-state solution," Wood said before the vote. “For that reason, while the United States strongly supports a durable peace, in which both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and security, we do not support calls for an immediate ceasefire.”
Israel's UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said that a ceasefire will be possible only with the “return of all the hostages and the destruction of Hamas”.
Riyad Mansour, UN envoy for Palestine, told the council that the result of the vote was "disastrous". "Millions of Palestinian lives hang in the balance. Every single one of them is sacred, worth saving,” he said.
Russia's deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky called the vote "one of the darkest days in the history of the Middle East" and accused the United States of issuing "a death sentence to thousands, if not tens of thousands more civilians in Palestine and Israel, including women and children."
Hamas reacts
Strongly condemning the US veto in an official statement, Hamas said Washington's move was 'unethical and inhumane'. "The US obstruction of the issuance of a ceasefire resolution is a direct participation with the occupation in killing our people and committing more massacres and ethnic cleansing," Ezzat El-Reshiq, a member of the group's political bureau, said, Reuters reported.
Fighting intensified in Gaza on Friday as Israel struck Khan Younis in the south, and Gaza City in the north, taking the death toll further up. Even as the US vetoed a humanitarian ceasefire, Washington has been putting pressure on Israel to protect Palestinian civilians.
Article 19 of UN Charter
Ahead of the crucial vote, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Gaza is at a breaking point, and warned of a humanitarian catastrophe. The emergency meeting of the council was called by Guterres who, for the first-time, invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, which enables a UN chief to raise threats he sees to international peace and security.
Article 99 has not been used at the UN since 1971. Guterres said that now the UN anticipates a complete breakdown of public order in Gaza and increased pressure for mass displacement into Egypt.
