Benjamin Netanyahu has cancelled peace talks with Hamas following the UN Security Council’s demand for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza conflict.

The Israeli prime minister’s office said on Tuesday that he decided to recall the delegation to Qatar because of Hamas’ unbending negotiating position.

Mr Netanyahu said the terror group had rejected America’s ‘compromise’ proposal that would have linked any ceasefire to the release of Israeli hostages. Instead, Hamas had insisted on “extreme demands” including an immediate end to hostilities.

“Hamas is not interested in continuing negotiations and reaching the deal,” Mr Netanyahu said before adding that it was “an unfortunate testimony to the damaging nature of the UN Security Council’s decision”.

The Israeli leader was referring to the UN Security Council resolution on a ceasefire in Gaza that was passed on Monday after the US, Israel’s key ally, abstained rather than use its veto.

The foreign ministry of Qatar said that talks will still continue, and an unnamed Israeli official told the Haaretz newspaper that “part of” the delegation will stay in Doha to continue the talks as they insisted the “deal has not collapsed”.

Families of some of the hostages were angered by the move and the government’s apparent refusal to prioritise the rescue of their loved ones. Several relatives who were invited to a parliament hearing on Tuesday afternoon started shouting “disgrace” on hearing the Knesset will not cancel its recess due to start next weekend.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, who called off a trip to Washington after the UN vote, faced scathing criticism in Israeli media on Tuesday for “overreacting” to the resolution.

A well-placed columnist at the centrist newspaper Maariv called the prime minister’s reaction “madness” that “humiliated the American administration for no reason”.

“Every new day that that man is in office causes strategic damage to the future of the State of Israel,” Ben Caspit wrote.

Despite the UN resolution calling for a ceasefire, the IDF ramped up bombings of Gaza on Monday night, describing them as the largest in weeks. Damage and loss of life was reported across the Gaza Strip, including 18 people, nine of them children, in an airstrike on one residential building in the northeast of Rafah.