While US President Joe Biden was in Israel on Wednesday, his country stood isolated in the Security Council vetoing a resolution calling for a “humanitarian pause” in the Palestinian killings by Israel.
The US was the sole vote against the resolution on Wednesday, with 12 members voting in favour and Russia and the United Kingdom abstaining, Al Jazeera reported.
“We are on the ground doing the hard work of diplomacy,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council after the vote. “We believe we need to let that diplomacy play out.”
The Brazil-drafted text would have condemned violence against all civilians, but the US said that it did not do enough to underscore Israel’s right to self-defence. The US has typically exercised its Security Council veto to shield Israel from critical resolutions.
“The overwhelming majority of the council, 12 countries, supported that resolution and expressed disappointment after days of negotiations and a humanitarian situation that was rapidly escalating, that the council wasn’t able to come together and offer this view, this call for calm, this call for access for humanitarians,” Al Jazeera correspondent Kristen Saloomey reported from UN headquarters in New York City.
The vote came amid soaring tensions in the region, with crowds of protesters taking to the street in several countries after a deadly explosion at a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday drew widespread outrage.
Palestinian authorities said at least 471 people were killed in the blast that was caused by an Israeli air raid.
