US vetoes Gaza ceasefire resolution at UN as it didn’t condition truce on hostages’ release

The United States vetoes a UN Security Council resolution for a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, after a senior US official accused council members of cynically rejecting attempts at reaching a compromise.

All other countries on the 15-seat council voted in favor of the resolution sponsored by the panel’s 10 non-permanent members.

The resolution calls for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” along with an “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.”

The American official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said ahead of the vote that the US would only support a resolution that explicitly calls for the immediate release of hostages as part of a ceasefire.

“As we stated many times before, we just can’t support an unconditional ceasefire that does not call for the immediate release of hostages,” the official said.

In March, the US abstained from a resolution that similarly called for an immediate ceasefire during the Ramadan holy month along with an immediate and unconditional release of the hostages in Gaza. The demands were merged into the same sentence at the request of the US, which argued then that this was sufficient to prevent it from vetoing. The US argued then that the resolution effectively conditioned a ceasefire on a hostage deal even though this linkage wasn’t explicit in the text.

Like the March resolution, the text submitted today also places the demands for an immediate ceasefire and immediate and unconditional hostage release in the same sentence, albeit without an explicit conditionality between them.

Spokespeople for the US Mission to the UN did not respond to requests for clarification on what led Washington to shift its stance on the matter.

This is the fourth Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza vetoed by the US since the start of the war.

In June, the Security Council passed a resolution sponsored by the US that backed the staged ceasefire proposal being brokered by Washington, Egypt and Qatar. That framework has yet to lead to an agreement, though, and the sides remain at an impasse.