The United States has vetoed a UN resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in the war in Gaza on Wednesday because it is not linked to an immediate release of hostages taken captive by Hamas in Israel in October 2023.
The council voted overwhelmingly in favour of the resolution – 14 of its 15 members voted “yes” including US allies Britain and France – but it was doomed by the veto.
US deputy ambassador Robert Wood said the US worked for weeks to avoid a veto of the resolution sponsored by the council’s 10 elected members, and expressed regret that compromise language was not accepted.
“We made clear throughout negotiations we could not support an unconditional ceasefire that failed to release the hostages,” he said.
“Hamas would have seen it as a vindication of its cynical strategy to hope and pray the international community forgets about the fate of more than 100 hostages from more than 20 member states who have been held for 410 days.”
The resolution that was put to a vote “demands an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire to be respected by all parties, and further reiterates its demand for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages”.
The resolution had been sponsored by the 10 elected members on the 15-member council. Unlike the five permanent members – the US, Russia, China, the UK and France – the elected members have no veto power.
The response to the veto by the Palestinian deputy UN ambassador, Majed Bamya, reflected the widespread anger and disappointment at the failure of the UN’s most powerful body to demand an end to the more than 13-month war, which has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, and left most of the territory in ruins.
The absence of a ceasefire is allowing a “full-fledged Israeli assault against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian land” to continue, Mr Bamya told the council.
“A ceasefire will allow to save lives — all lives. This was true a year ago. This is even more true today.”
Stressing the tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths, Mr Bamya asked: “Do they have the right to kill, and the only right we have is to die?”
He told council members: “You are witnessing the attempt to annihilate a nation, destroy a nation.”
Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, countered that the resolution “was not a path to peace, it was a roadmap to more terror, more suffering and more bloodshed.”
He thanked the US, Israel’s closest ally, “for exercising its veto, for standing on the side of morality and justice, for refusing to abandon the hostages and their families”.
The reason the council was meeting and “the pain that the people are suffering (is) because of Hamas,” Mr Danon said, stressing that the only future for Gaza is without the Palestinian militant group.
In a statement, Hamas strongly condemned the veto, claiming the United States again demonstrated “its direct involvement in the aggression against our people, acting as an accomplice in the killing of children and women and the complete destruction of civilian life in Gaza”.
“We demand the US to stop this clumsy hostile policy if it truly seeks to end wars and achieve security and stability in the region, as we heard from the upcoming administration,” Hamas added, a reference to President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to end the war in Gaza.
The Security Council has adopted several resolutions on Gaza, including for a ceasefire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and demanding humanitarian access. The US as well as Russia and China have vetoed several previous resolutions on the war.
The Security Council in June adopted its first resolution on a ceasefire plan aimed at ending the war between Israel and Hamas.
The US-sponsored resolution welcomed a ceasefire proposal announced by US President Joe Biden that the US said Israel had accepted. It called on the militant Palestinian group Hamas to accept the three-phase plan – but the war continues.
Elsewhere, Israeli officials on Wednesday demanded the freedom to strike Lebanon’s Hezbollah as part of any ceasefire deal there, raising a potential complication as a top US envoy was in the region attempting to clinch an agreement.
The development came as an airstrike hit the historic Syrian town of Palmyra, killing 36 people, according to Syrian state-run media, which blamed the attack on Israel. The Israeli military declined to comment.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz and foreign minister Gideon Saar each said Israel sought to reserve the right to respond to any violations by Hezbollah under an emerging proposal, which would push the militant group’s fighters and Israeli ground forces out of a UN buffer zone in southern Lebanon.
There have been signs of progress on the ceasefire deal, with Hezbollah’s allies in the Lebanese government saying the militant group had responded positively to the proposal.
“In any agreement we will reach, we will have to maintain our freedom to act if there will be violations,” Mr Saar told dozens of foreign ambassadors in Jerusalem.
“We will have to be able to act in time, before the problem will grow.”
Mr Katz, in a meeting with intelligence corps officers, said “the condition for any political settlement in Lebanon” was the right for the Israeli military “to act and protect the citizens of Israel from Hezbollah”.
Amos Hochstein, the Biden administration’s lead on Israel and Lebanon, has been working in recent days to push the sides toward agreement. He has been meeting this week with officials in Lebanon and said on Wednesday he would travel to Israel in an attempt to “try to bring this to a close if we can”.
On Tuesday, Mr Hochstein said an agreement to end the Israel-Hezbollah war is “within our grasp”.
