The United States has just been left alone in the UN Security Council when stopping, with its veto, a resolution that requested a high “immediate” fire in the Gaza Strip. The other fourteen members of the Council, including traditional allies such as France and the United Kingdom, have voted in favor of the text, but the Washington maneuver has been enough to block it. Ten non -permanent countries of the Council have presented the document after two weeks of intense negotiations that, in the words of the Slovenian ambassador Samuel Zbogar, reached “a reasonable consensus.”
The resolution raises three concrete measures: high fire, release of hostages captured by Hamas and massive entry of humanitarian aid in Gaza, which drags an unprecedented crisis. The United States interim representative before the UN, Dorothy Shea, has justified the veto minutes before the vote: “It is unacceptable for what it says and what it does not say,” he said. According to her, her country cannot support any text that does not expressly condemn Hamas or require her to disarm and retire from Gaza. “It is inexplicable that many members of this council continue to recognize that Hamas could end tomorrow this conflict if he surrenders and leaves his weapons,” he argued. And he added: “It is inconceivable that the UN has not yet described Hamas as a terrorist organization.”
Shea has also denounced that the text “establishes a false equivalence between Israel and Hamas, which is incorrect and dangerous.” In addition, he has asked the international community to support the Humanitarian Foundation for Gaza (GHF), an organism created by Israel to channel help outside the UN mechanisms. However, several of their operations have led to episodes of chaos, stamped and, in some cases, killings.
Cross criticism, diplomatic isolation
Guyana ambassador, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, who presides over the Council this month, has announced just a few minutes ago the result of the vote: fourteen votes in favor, one against. Despite this majority support, the American veto has been enough to stop the agreement. Representatives of Norway, Slovenia and other countries have lamented the Washington block, remembering that the resolution had an exclusively humanitarian character. “Family and help retention are contrary to international law. They cannot be justified with any war objective,” Zbogar insisted.
Even the United Kingdom, a traditional ally of the United States and Israel, has marked distances. His ambassador, Barbara Woodward, has described as “inhuman” that he shoots Palestinians who wait with their families to collect food, in clear allusion to the shootings recognized by the Israeli army.
The representative of Pakistan, equal Iftikhar Ahmad, has been even more blunt: “This is no longer a humanitarian crisis, it is the collapse of humanity.” And he concluded: “When the whole world was waiting for action, again this council is blocked by the action of a single member that prevents him from fulfilling his responsibility.”
This veto marks the sixth of the United States to a critical resolution with Israel since the war in Gaza broke out on October 7. The conflict has already caused thousands of deaths, mostly Palestinian civilians, has destroyed key infrastructure and has left the population to the edge of starvation. For many analysts, this new diplomatic maneuver consolidates the growing international isolation of Washington, whose position distance even its closest European partners.
