The United States vetoed a United Nations resolution on Friday backed by almost all other Security Council members and many other nations demanding an immediate ‘humanitarian ceasefire’ in Gaza.
US Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood criticised the council after the vote for its failure to condemn Hamas’s October 7 massacres in Israel in which terrorists killed more than 1,200 people including babies and women and took about 240 hostages or to acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself.
Wood said the resolution was “divorced from reality” and “would have not moved the needle forward on the ground.” He further said that halting military action would allow Hamas to continue to rule Gaza and “only plant the seeds for the next war.”
“For that reason, while the United States strongly supports a durable peace, in which both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and security, we do not support calls for an immediate ceasefire,” Wood said.
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan thanked US President Joe Biden for “standing steadfastly” with Israel. “A little light rejected a lot of darkness,” Erdan said. “A ceasefire is possible, only with the return of all the hostages and destruction of Hamas,” he added.
