US vetoes UNSC resolution demanding Gaza ceasefire not conditional on hostage release
American officials say they offered compromises that were rejected, cast blame on Russia and China; US allowed a similar resolution to pass in March
The United States on Wednesday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for a permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and the unconditional release of all hostages, but did not make one contingent on the other.
All other members of the 15-seat council voted in favor of the resolution, which was sponsored by the panel’s 10 non-permanent members. It came some thirteen months into the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, which began when Hamas-led terrorists attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
“A durable end to the war must come with the release of the hostages. These two urgent goals are inextricably linked. This resolution abandoned that necessity, and for that reason, the United States could not support it,” said Deputy US Ambassador to the UN Robert Wood.
Wood said the US had sought compromise, but the text of the proposed resolution would have sent a “dangerous message” to Hamas that “there’s no need to come back to the negotiating table.”
The text submitted on Wednesday called for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” and, in the same sentence, for an “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” but it did not draw an explicit link between them.
A senior US official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity ahead of Wednesday’s vote, said Britain had put forward new language that the US would have supported as a compromise, but that was rejected by the elected members.
#BREAKING: The US has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution demanding an "immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire" in Gaza.
The US vetoed the resolution because it did not condition a ceasefire on the release of the 101 hostages still held by Hamas. pic.twitter.com/tlMRlBuwDe
— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) November 20, 2024
The official claimed some members were more interested in bringing about a US veto than compromising on the resolution, accusing US adversaries Russia and China of encouraging those members.
“China kept demanding ‘stronger language’ and Russia appeared to be pulling strings with various… members,” the official said.
“There’s some sense that some… members regret that those responsible for the drafting allowed the process to be manipulated for what we consider to be cynical purposes,” the official added.
BREAKING: The UN Security Council is voting on Wednesday on a draft resolution demanding immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
This is without linking or conditioning it on the release of hostages held by Hamas. pic.twitter.com/yJrCNDsID5
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) November 20, 2024
Notably, though, the US abstained on a resolution in March that called for an immediate ceasefire during the Ramadan holy month along with an immediate and unconditional release of the hostages in Gaza.
In the March resolution, the demands for a ceasefire and a hostage release 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.
Pressed to explain the apparent discrepancy, a US official told The Times of Israel that the March resolution was time-bound, whereas Wednesday’s was not.
While the March resolution indeed called for a ceasefire during Ramadan, the text also adds that members want the deal to “lead to a lasting sustainable ceasefire.” Moreover, US officials did not at the time use the time-bound nature of the resolution to justify the decision to allow it to pass.
What the US did say, at the time, was that it could not vote in favor of the March resolution because it didn’t include a condemnation of Hamas.
The US official told The Times of Israel on Wednesday that Washington feared that the latest “resolution had the potential only to buoy Hamas.”
“We worked in good faith, proposing language of our own and embracing other potential compromises to try to get to a consensus product. We ourselves made several proposals for the E10 to consider, including strong chapter seven language condemning Hamas. We also sought to bridge the gap by putting forward proposals, including a demand for an immediate ceasefire to include the release of all hostages,” the US official added.
This was the fourth Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza vetoed by the US since the start of the war.
In June, however, the Security Council did pass a resolution, sponsored by the US, that backed a staged ceasefire proposal that was being brokered at the time by Washington, Egypt and Qatar. That framework has yet to lead to an agreement, though, and the sides remain at an impasse.
The resolution vetoed on Wednesday also called for increased humanitarian aid into the Strip and condemned “any effort to starve Palestinians” — an accusation levied at Israel by various international bodies that Israel categorically rejects, noting that it facilitates the entry of food aid into the enclave.
American Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said last week that “there must be no forcible displacement, nor policy of starvation in Gaza,” but the US has not gone so far as to accuse Israel of intentionally starving Gazans.
Israel issued a formal promise to the US last week that it has no intention of forcibly displacing Palestinians in northern Gaza or withholding aid from the civilian population there, Axios reported.
Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon thanked the US on Wednesday for vetoing the resolution in a short video statement posted to social media.
“I would like to thank the United States of America for vetoing this shameful resolution which called for a ceasefire without a direct linkage and demand for the release of all the hostages. We will not stop until we bring back all of our boys and girls who are being held by Hamas,” he said.
Ahead of the vote, Danon had called the text “a resolution for appeasement,” saying, “History will remember who stood with the hostages and who abandoned them.”
I thank the USA for vetoing the Security Council resolution that called for a ceasefire without conditioning it to the release of the hostages. We will continue the fight until all the hostages are released.????️???????? pic.twitter.com/dOIakgJl3w
— Danny Danon ???????? דני דנון (@dannydanon) November 20, 2024
In March, Israel blasted the US for allowing the March resolution to pass.
Other members of the council roundly criticized the US for blocking the resolution, which was put forward by the council’s 10 elected members: Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, South Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and Switzerland.
“It is deeply regretted that due to the use of the veto this council has once again failed to uphold its responsibility to maintain international peace and security,” Malta’s UN Ambassador Vanessa Frazier said after the vote failed, adding that the text of the resolution “was by no means a maximalist one.”
“It represented the bare minimum of what is needed to begin to address the desperate situation on the ground,” she said.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 42,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle as of November and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
It is believed that 97 of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas released 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November, and four hostages were released before that. Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 37 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the bodies of two IDF soldiers who were killed in 2014.
Israel’s toll in the ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza and in military operations along the border with the Strip stands at 379.
