United Nations, Dec 8 (EFE).- The United States on Friday vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, which had been introduced by the United Arab Emirates and gained the of 97 member countries in just 24 hours.
The call was ed by 13 Council , with the United Kingdom abstaining and the US invoking its veto power saying the resolution was “imbalanced,” “divorced from reality” and “would not move the needle forward on the ground in any concrete way.”
The US representative said his “recommendations were ignored” and could not understand why the resolution’s authors declined to include a condemnation of “Hamas’s horrific terrorist attack” or the “obscene sexual violence” it perpetrated on its Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
Wood also argued that an unconditional ceasefire while Hamas is able to attack again would be “a recipe for disaster for Israel, for Palestinians and for the entire region.”
The representative of the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed Abushahab, lamented that the veto: “what is the message we are sending Palestinians if we cannot unite behind a call to halt the relentless bombardment of Gaza?” he asked.
On Oct. 18, the US also single-handedly vetoed a similar cease-fire resolution introduced by Brazil, arguing that the text failed to mention Israel’s right to self-defense.
The conflict in Palestine has been the reason for most of the vetoes exercised by the US in the Security Council, up to 45 times in its history, always on the side of its main ally in the world, Israel.
Friday’s vote comes at the behest of Secretary-General António Guterres, who on Wednesday invoked an extraordinary mechanism of the UN’s founding charter, Article 99, which authorizes him to request the Council’s intervention in cases of serious threats to international peace and security.
But the vote was doomed to failure once the US position became known, and yet negotiations continued until the last minute, with US attempts to change the word “ceasefire” to “truce” failing.
The Gaza war has already left 17,000 Palestinians and 1,200 Israelis dead and displaced 85% of Gaza’s 2 million people, who are suffering serious health and food problems. EFE fjo/ics
