UNITED NATIONS — The United States vetoed a United Nations resolution Friday backed by the vast majority of Security Council members and many other nations demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza.

The vote in the 15-member council was 13-1 with the United Kingdom abstaining.

U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood criticized the council after the vote for its failure to condemn Hamas’ attacks in Israel and to acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself. He declared that halting military action would allow Hamas to continue to rule and “only plant the seeds for the next war.”

The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and other leading Arab nations and Turkey were in Washington on Friday on a rare joint mission to press the Biden administration to drop its opposition to a cease-fire. They were scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday afternoon.

“If people are not seeing it here, we are seeing it,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said, adding: “We’re seeing the challenges that we are are facing talking to our people. They are all saying we’re doing nothing. Because despite all our efforts, Israel is continuing these massacres.”

Israel’s more than two-month military campaign has killed more than 17,400 people in Gaza - 70% of them women and children - and wounded more than 46,000, according to the Palestinian territory’s Health Ministry, which says many others are trapped under rubble. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.