Russia, China veto US cease-fire resolution at UN

Israel continues to defy Biden administration

A US resolution calling for “an immediate and sustained cease-fire” as part of a deal in the Gaza Strip failed in the UN Security Council on Friday, after Russia and China vetoed the measure, which had included some of Washington’s strongest language since the start of the war.

The US-backed resolution reflected the Biden administration’s growing frustration with Israel’s conduct in the war and had been intended to put pressure on Israel not to attack the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are sheltering. But international divisions, including over Washington’s own use of its veto power in the council and its refusal to call for a permanent cease-fire, appeared to doom the resolution Friday.

Eleven members voted in favor of the resolution, but three nations, including two permanent members with veto power, Russia and China, voted against it. Algeria also voted against the measure, and Guyana abstained.

After the vote, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield defended the resolution, saying it was brought forward “in good faith after consulting with all council members and after multiple rounds of edits.”

She said Russia and China vetoed the resolution for two reasons: They had refused to condemn Hamas, and they “simply did not want to vote for a resolution that was penned by the United States because it would rather see us fail than to see this council succeed.”

Thomas-Greenfield said the US draft would have put the Security Council’s weight behind diplomatic efforts “to secure an immediate and sustained cease-fire as part of a deal that leads to the release of all hostages that will allow much more humanitarian aid to get into Gaza.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking before leaving Tel Aviv where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders Friday, also expressed disappointment at the failure.

Later, Blinken urged Israel not to invade a city packed with civilians, and Netanyahu defiantly declared that “we’ll do it by ourselves.”

The tense back-and-forth — on the same day that Israel’s far-right finance minister announced the seizure of three square miles of Palestinian territory in the West Bank — marked the latest show of Israeli defiance in the face of US demands that it reduce civilian suffering in Gaza and move toward a two-state solution.

The exchange came at the end of Blinken’s trip to the region and appeared to signal that Israeli leaders have little interest in moderating their actions in Gaza, despite increasingly sharp criticism from their main military backer and ally.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, had denounced the US-backed measure before the vote, calling it a “hypocritical initiative” and “a diluted formulation” regarding a cease-fire.

“To save the lives of peaceful Palestinians, this is not enough,” he said. The draft, he asserted, was written with US political interests in mind, to “ensure the impunity of Israel” and to undermine the authority of the council.

He urged council members to vote against the resolution, saying, “We cannot allow the Security Council to become an instrument in advancement of Washington’s destructive policy in the Middle East.”

President Emmanuel Macron of France said that the country would work with Arab nations, including Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, to try to persuade China and Russia to support a French Security Council resolution. Speaking at a news conference in Brussels shortly after the US resolution failed, he said the effort was a positive sign of Washington’s shifting priorities.

France’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday that it was working on a draft resolution. It did not specify when it would be filed.

The United States had vetoed three previous resolutions demanding a stop to fighting in Gaza, arguing that the measures could disrupt hostage negotiations and staunchly defending Israel’s right to defend itself after the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7. In each of those earlier Security Council votes, the United States was the only JJvote against the resolutions. Russia and Britain abstained from the first vote, in October, and Britain abstained from the votes in December and February.

But as the death toll has mounted in Gaza, where health authorities say more than 30,000 people have been killed, and as hunger and disease worsen around the territory, President Biden and other US officials have grown increasingly critical of Israel’s prime minister and his handling of the war. In his State of the Union address this month, Biden called for Netanyahu to let more aid into Gaza and do more to protect civilians.

The urging of an “immediate” cease-fire was a shift from a draft Security Council resolution that the United States circulated last month, which had called for a temporary ceasefire “as soon as practicable.”

A delegation of mediators from Israel, Egypt, Qatar, and the United States were meeting in Doha, Qatar’s capital, on Friday to “advance the release of hostages” still being held in Gaza, according to Netanyahu’s office.

A US official confirmed that CIA director William Burns would travel to Qatar on Friday for negotiations.

In December, the Security Council adopted a resolution that called for “urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors” to allow aid to reach civilians in Gaza.

But that measure stopped short of demanding a ceasefire. The United States and Russia abstained from that vote.