The United States on Tuesday, February 20, vetoed an Arab-backed and widely supported UN resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in the embattled Gaza Strip, saying it would interfere with negotiations on a deal to free hostages abducted in Israel.
The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 13-1 with the United Kingdom abstaining, reflecting the strong support from countries around the globe for ending the war, which started when Hamas militants invaded southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage. Since then, more than 29,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's military offensive, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which says the vast majority were women and children.
It was the third US veto of a Security Council resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and came a day after the United States circulated a rival resolution that would support a temporary ceasefire linked to the release of all hostages.
Virtually every council member – including the United States – expressed concern at the impending catastrophe in Gaza's southern city of Rafah, where some 1.5 million Palestinians have sought refuge, if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes ahead with his plan to evacuate civilians and move Israel's military offensive to the area bordering Egypt, where Israel says Hamas fighters are hiding.
Before the vote, Algeria's UN Ambassador Amar Bendjama, the Arab representative on the council, said: "A vote in favor of this draft resolution is a support to the Palestinians right to life. Conversely, voting against it implies an endorsement of the brutal violence and collective punishment inflicted against them."
US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield countered by saying the United States understands the desire for urgent action but believes the resolution would "negatively impact" sensitive negotiations on a hostage deal and a pause in fighting for at least six weeks. If that happens, "we can take the time to build a more enduring peace," she said.
The proposed US resolution, she said, "would do what this text does not – pressure Hamas to take the hostage deal that is on the table and help secure a pause that allows humanitarian assistance to reach Palestinian civilians in desperate need."
She told reporters the Arab draft did not link the release of the hostages to a ceasefire, which would give Hamas a halt to fighting without requiring it to take any action. That would mean "that the fighting would have continued because without the hostage releases we know that the fighting is going to continue," she said.
Israel's UN Ambassador Gilad Erdan said the word ceasefire is used in the Security Council, the General Assembly and by UN officials "as if it is a silver bullet, a magical solution to all of the region's problems." He called that "an absurd notion," warning that a ceasefire in Gaza would enable Hamas to rearm and regroup and "their next attempted genocide against Israelis will only be a question of when, not if."
Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, shot back that the "message given today to Israel with this veto is that it can continue to get away with murder." He warned that more babies will be killed and orphaned, more children will die of hunger, cold and disease, more families will be threatened with further forced displacement, and Gaza's entire 2.3 million population will be left without food, water, medicine and shelter.
And in a sharply critical message to the United States, Israel's closest ally, Mansour said: "It means that human lives that could have been saved are instead being forsaken to Israel's genocidal war machine, deliberately, knowingly, by those who oppose a ceasefire."