U.S. Vetoes Gaza Cease-Fire Resolution at U.N. Security Council

U.S. Vetoes Gaza Cease-Fire Resolution at U.N. Security Council

The United States, which has blocked four other resolutions, said it vetoed the most recent version because it did not make the release of hostages a precondition for a truce.

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By Farnaz Fassihi

The United States on Wednesday vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, where a humanitarian crisis is intensifying and the fighting shows no signs of ending.

Fourteen Security Council members voted for the resolution, while only the United States voted against it.

The United States said it vetoed the resolution, the fifth the Council has taken up, because it did not make the cease-fire contingent on the release of the hostages held in Gaza. The resolution does call for the release of all hostages, but the wording suggests that their release would come only after a cease-fire were implemented.

The veto was the fourth time the United States blocked an effort by the Council to demand a cease-fire since the war began over a year ago, when Hamas led an attack on Israel and took more than 200 people hostage. More than 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza over the course of the war, according to the local health authorities, and a U.N.-backed panel warned that the territory faces the risk of famine.

The veto comes as Washington has been working for months to help negotiate a cease-fire between the parties and a deal to release the hostages. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, and the Israeli authorities believe that around a third are dead.

“We could not support an unconditional cease-fire that failed to release the hostages,” said Robert A. Wood, an American ambassador to the United Nations. “These two urgent goals are inextricably linked. This resolution abandoned that necessity."

The resolution called for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, increased and unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid and for all parties to enable the battered Palestinian aid agency UNRWA to carry out its work in the territory.

The resolution was put forth by 10 nonpermanent members of the Security Council: Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and Switzerland.

“It is a sad day for the Security Council, for the United Nations and for the international community,” said Algeria’s ambassador, Amar Bendjama. He said the 14 members who supported the resolution had spoken for the wider international community.

The draft resolution was negotiated for weeks, Guyana’s ambassador, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, said ahead of the vote. She said the Council needed to respond to concerns “over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza,” and particularly the dire situation in northern Gaza.

Although Security Council resolutions are considered to be international law, the Council has no means of enforcing resolutions. It could impose punitive measures, such as sanctions, but that would also require member states to agree.

The Security Council, whose permanent members are divided over the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, has struggled to speak in one voice and play an effective role in mediating or ending these conflicts. The United States’ staunch support for Israel, and the resulting deadlock over Gaza in the Council, has generated criticism and frustration from the wider U.N. membership, including from some of America’s closest allies, the permanent council members Britain and France.

The Council has tried to bring the war in Gaza to the table for action in the past year with multiple resolutions. The United States blocked three previous resolutions calling for a cease-fire and release of hostages saying at the time that Israel had the right to defend itself and it was not yet time for the war to end.

Russia and China vetoed an American resolution in March that called for “an immediate and sustained cease-fire,” in a vote in which Algeria joined them and Guyana abstained. That month, the United States abstained from voting on a resolution that called for a temporary halt to the fighting for the month of Ramadan.

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