US Vetoes UN Resolution Demanding Immediate Humanitarian Ceasefire in Gaza

A general view shows the United Nations Security Council after the vote about a ceasefire in Gaza at UN headquarters in New York on December 8, 2023. (Photo by Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
A general view shows the United Nations Security Council after the vote about a ceasefire in Gaza at UN headquarters in New York on December 8, 2023. (Photo by Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
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US Vetoes UN Resolution Demanding Immediate Humanitarian Ceasefire in Gaza

A general view shows the United Nations Security Council after the vote about a ceasefire in Gaza at UN headquarters in New York on December 8, 2023. (Photo by Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP)
A general view shows the United Nations Security Council after the vote about a ceasefire in Gaza at UN headquarters in New York on December 8, 2023. (Photo by Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP)

The United States vetoed a United Nations resolution Friday backed by almost all other Security Council members and dozens of other nations demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

The vote in the 15-member council was 13-1, with the United Kingdom abstaining.

US deputy ambassador Robert Wood called the resolution “imbalanced” and criticized the council after the vote for its failure to condemn Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel in which the militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, or to acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself.

He declared that halting military action would allow Hamas to continue to rule Gaza and “only plant the seeds for the next war.”

“Hamas has no desire to see a durable peace, to see a two-state solution,” Wood said before the vote. “For that reason, while the United States strongly supports a durable peace, in which both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and security, we do not support calls for an immediate ceasefire.”

Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 17,400 people in Gaza — 70% of them women and children — and wounded more than 46,000, according to the Palestinian territory’s Health Ministry, which says many others are trapped under rubble.

Ambassador Nicolas De Rivière of France, a veto-wielding permanent council member who supported the resolution, lamented its lack of unity and pleaded “for a new, immediate and lasting humanitarian truce that should lead to a sustainable cease-fire.”
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky called the vote “one of the darkest days in the history of the Middle East" and accused the United States of issuing “a death sentence to thousands, if not tens of thousands more civilians in Palestine and Israel, including women and children.”
He said “history will judge Washington’s actions” in the face of what he called a “merciless Israeli bloodbath.”
The council called the emergency meeting to hear from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who for the first time invoked Article 99 of the UN Charter, which enables a UN chief to raise threats he sees to international peace and security. He warned of an “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and urged the council to demand a humanitarian cease-fire.
Guterres said he raised Article 99 — which hadn’t been used at the UN since 1971 — because “there is a high risk of the total collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza.” The UN anticipates this would result in “a complete breakdown of public order and increased pressure for mass displacement into Egypt,” he warned.
Gaza is at “a breaking point,” he said, and desperate people are at serious risk of starvation.



Israeli Forces Kills over 20 People Seeking Food in Gaza, Witnesses and Health Officials Say

Palestinians return with bags, boxes and wooden pallets from a food distribution point run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) group, near the Netsarim corridor in the central Gaza Strip on August 3, 2025. (AFP)
Palestinians return with bags, boxes and wooden pallets from a food distribution point run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) group, near the Netsarim corridor in the central Gaza Strip on August 3, 2025. (AFP)
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Israeli Forces Kills over 20 People Seeking Food in Gaza, Witnesses and Health Officials Say

Palestinians return with bags, boxes and wooden pallets from a food distribution point run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) group, near the Netsarim corridor in the central Gaza Strip on August 3, 2025. (AFP)
Palestinians return with bags, boxes and wooden pallets from a food distribution point run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) group, near the Netsarim corridor in the central Gaza Strip on August 3, 2025. (AFP)

Israeli forces killed at least 23 Palestinians seeking food on Sunday in the Gaza Strip, according to hospital officials and witnesses, who described facing gunfire as hungry crowds surged around aid sites as the malnutrition-related death toll surged.

Desperation has gripped the Palestinian territory of more than 2 million, which experts have warned is at risk of famine because of Israel’s blockade and nearly two-year offensive.

Yousef Abed, among the crowds en route to a distribution point, described coming under what he called indiscriminate fire, looking around and seeing at least three people bleeding on the ground.

“I couldn’t stop and help them because of the bullets,” he said.

Southern Gaza’s Nasser Hospital said they had received bodies from near multiple distribution sites, including eight from Teina, about three kilometers (1.8 miles) away from a distribution site in Khan Younis, which is operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a private US and Israeli-backed contractor that took over aid distribution more than two months ago.

The hospital also received one body from Shakoush, an area hundreds of meters (yards) north of a different GHF site in Rafah. Another nine were also killed by troops near the Morag corridor, who were awaiting trucks entering Gaza through an Israeli border crossing, it said.

Three Palestinian eyewitnesses, seeking food in Teina and Morag, told The Associated Press the shootings occurred on the route to the distribution points, which are in military zones secured by Israeli forces. They said they saw soldiers open fire on hungry crowds advancing toward the troops.

Further north in central Gaza, hospital officials described a similar episode, with Israeli troops opening fire Sunday morning toward crowds of Palestinians trying to GHF’s fourth and northernmost distribution point.

“Troops were trying to prevent people from advancing. They opened fire and we fled. Some people were shot,” said Hamza Matter, one of the aid seekers.

At least five people were killed and 27 wounded at GHF’s site near Netzarim corridor, Awda Hospital said.

Eyewitnesses seeking food in the strip have reported similar gunfire attacks in recent days near aid distribution sites, leaving dozens of Palestinians dead.

The United Nations reported 859 people have been killed near GHF sites from May 27 to July 31 and that hundreds more have been slain along the routes of UN-led food convoys.

The GHF launched in May as Israel sought an alternative to the UN-run system, which had safely delivered aid for much of the war but was accused by Israel of allowing Hamas, which guarded convoys early in the war, to siphon supplies.

Israel has not offered evidence of widespread theft. The UN has denied it.

GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray or fired warning shots to prevent deadly crowding. Israel’s military has said it only fires warning shots as well. Both claimed the death tolls have been exaggerated

Neither Israel’s military nor GHF immediately responded to questions about Sunday's reported fatalities.

Meanwhile, the Gaza health ministry also said six more Palestinian adults died of malnutrition-related causes in the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours. This brings the death toll among Palestinian adults to 82 in the past five weeks since the ministry started counting deaths among adults in late June, it said.

Ninety-three children have also died of causes related to malnutrition since the war in Gaza started in 2023, the ministry said.

The war began when Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, and abducted another 251. They are still holding 50 captives, around 20 believed to be alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefires or other deals. Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 60,400 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, is staffed by medical professionals. The United Nations and other independent experts view its figures as the most reliable count of casualties. Israel has disputed its figures, but hasn’t provided its own account of casualties.