US vetoes UN resolution demanding ceasefire in Gaza because there is no link to hostage release – Boston News, Weather, Sports

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States on Wednesday vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza war because it did not involve the immediate release of hostages taken captive by Hamas militants in Israel in October 2023.

The council voted overwhelmingly in favor of the resolution—14 of its 15 members voted in favor, including U.S. allies Britain and France—but the veto was doomed.

US Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood said the United States had worked for weeks to avoid a veto of the resolution proposed by the Council’s 10 elected members and expressed regret that compromise language had not been adopted.

“We made it clear during the negotiations that we cannot support an unconditional ceasefire that does not lead to the release of the hostages,” he said. “Hamas would take this as confirmation of its cynical strategy of hoping and praying that the international community will forget the fate of more than 100 hostages from more than 20 member states who were 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 emotional reaction to the veto by Palestine’s deputy UN ambassador Majed Bamiyah reflected widespread anger and frustration at the failure of the UN’s most powerful body to demand an end to more than 13 months of war that has killed more than 43,000 people. The Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, have left much of the area in ruins.

The absence of a ceasefire allows the “full-fledged Israeli attack on the Palestinian people and Palestinian land” to continue, Bamia told the council. “The truce will save lives—all lives. This was true a year ago. This is even more true today.”

Highlighting the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians, Bamiyah asked: “Do they have the right to kill and the only right we have is to die?”

He told council members: “You are witnessing an attempt to destroy a nation, to destroy a nation.”

Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon countered that the resolution “is not a path to peace, but a road map to more terror, more suffering and more bloodshed.”

He thanked the United States, Israel’s closest ally, “for using its veto, for standing on the side of morality and justice, for refusing to abandon the hostages and their families.”

The reason the council met and “the pain the people are suffering (is) because of Hamas,” Danon said, stressing that the only future for Gaza is without the Palestinian militant group.

In a statement, Hamas strongly condemned the veto, saying the United States had again demonstrated “its direct participation in the aggression against our people, complicit in the murder of children and women and the complete destruction of civilian life in the Gaza Strip.”

“We demand that the US stop this clumsy hostile policy if it truly seeks to end wars and achieve security and stability in the region, as we have heard from the incoming administration,” Hamas added, referring to President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to end the wars. war in Gaza.

The Security Council has adopted several resolutions on the Gaza Strip, including a ceasefire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and demanding humanitarian access. The United States, as well as Russia and China, had vetoed several previous resolutions on the war.

In June, the council passed 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 President Joe Biden, which the United States said Israel had accepted. He called on Hamas to accept the three-stage plan, but the war continues.

The Palestinian deputy ambassador placed the blame on Israel, saying: “It is very clear that Israel never intended to agree to a ceasefire and has found every reason not to enter into a ceasefire.”

In a statement read by Guyana’s UN Ambassador Carolyn Rodriguez Birkett after the vote, the council’s 10 elected members said they all supported the June resolution “with the expectation that a ceasefire agreement will be agreed upon and quickly implemented.”

But a few months later, the 10 elected members decided that the new resolution should go further and make an unequivocal demand for an unconditional ceasefire, not limited to any period of time.

Despite the US veto, elected members stressed that the war in Gaza must end immediately, hostages must be immediately released, humanitarian aid must be delivered throughout the Gaza Strip, and civilians and civilian infrastructure must be protected.

“Our collective efforts to end the fighting will not stop,” they said.

Algeria’s UN ambassador Amar Benjama, the Arab representative on the council, said the message to Israel after the veto was: “You can continue with your genocide. You can continue to collectively punish the Palestinian people with complete impunity. In this cell you enjoy immunity.

But he promised that elected members would soon return with an even stronger resolution under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter that was militarily feasible – and they would not stop until the Council took action.

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