The United States kept up pressure on Israel to do more to protect Palestinian civilians during a fierce offensive against Hamas militants across Gaza, even as Washington vetoed a U.N. Security Council demand for an immediate ceasefire.
Robert A. Wood, Alternate Representative of the U.S. for Special Political Affairs in the U.N., attends a meeting about invoking Article 99 of the United Nations charter to address the humanitarian crisis in the midst of conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, at the UN headquarters in New York City, U.S., December 8, 2023. Reuters/David Dee Delgado
The United States kept up pressure on Israel to do more to protect Palestinian civilians during a fierce offensive against Hamas militants across Gaza, even as Washington vetoed a U.N. Security Council demand for an immediate ceasefire.
Fighting escalated and the Palestinian death toll rose on Friday, with Israel pounding the enclave from north to south in an expanded phase of the two-month-old war against the Islamist group Hamas.
Decrying a "spiralling humanitarian nightmare", U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared that nowhere in Gaza was safe for civilians, hours before the U.S. vetoed a Security Council resolution backed by the vast majority of its members calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.
The vote left Washington diplomatically isolated on the 15-member council. Thirteen members voted in favor of the draft resolution put forward by the United Arab Emirates, while Britain abstained.
Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood told the council: "We do not support this resolution's call for an unsustainable ceasefire that will only plant the seeds for the next war."
The United States and Israel oppose a ceasefire, saying it would only benefit Hamas, which Israel has vowed to annihilate in response to the militants' deadly Oct. 7 cross-border rampage.
Washington instead supports "pauses" like the seven-day halt in fighting that saw Hamas release some hostages and the humanitarian aid flow increase. The deal broke down on Dec. 1.
Israel's U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan said in a statement: "A ceasefire will be possible only with the return of all the hostages and the destruction of Hamas."
In Washington, the White House on Friday said more could be done by Israel to reduce civilian casualties and the U.S. shared international concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
(Reporting by Bassam Masoud in Gaza, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo, Dan Williams, Emily Rose and Henriette Chacar in Jerusalem, Humeyra Pamuk and Simon Lewis in Washington, Gabrielle Tetrault-Farber in Geneva, Michelle Nichols in New York and Reuters bureaux; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; editing by Diane Craft)
The resolution passed on Wednesday by the United Nations General Assembly, calling for an end to Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories within 12 months, represents yet another example of misguided international pressure that not only lacks practicality but also undermines prospects for a meaningful peace process.
The Kremlin warned on Wednesday that an attack on Lebanese group Hezbollah and others using exploding pagers could become a trigger for a wider regional conflict and called for its perpetrators to be identified in an investigation.
Israel's Mossad spy agency planted explosives inside 5,000 pagers imported by Lebanese group Hezbollah months before Tuesday's detonations that killed nine people, a senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters.
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