Russia and China have vetoed a US-initiated UN Security Council draft resolution on the Middle East conflict, which notes the need for an immediate ceasefire but doesn’t explicitly call for it, a TASS correspondent reported.
According to the correspondent, eleven out of the 15 members of the Security Council, namely the United Kingdom, Malta, Mozambique, South Korea, Slovenia, the United States, Sierra Leone, France, Switzerland, Ecuador, and Japan, supported the resolution. Along with Russia and China, the draft was voted down by Algeria. Guyana abstained.
The resolution points to the need for an immediate and lasting ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and support international diplomatic efforts towards the ceasefire and hostages release.
It rejects any actions that might reduce the Gaza Strip’s area, including by means of establishing any buffer zones, condemns calls for displacing the Palestinian civilians, and rejects any attempts at demographic or territorial changes in the enclave. Apart from that, the resolution demands that Hamas and other armed groups immediately provide humanitarian access to the hostages still held in the Gaza Strip.
Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky said earlier that the UN Security Council resolution must contain either a demand or a call for a ceasefire rather than merely note the need for it.
Ahead of the voting, Russian Permanent Representative Vasily Nebenzya called on UN Security Council member nations not to support the US-initiated document, saying that another draft had been submitted by several non-permanent members. He said he called for supporting this other draft because it unequivocally calls for a ceasefire and unconditional release of hostages.
‘Hypocritical spectacle’: Russia
Moscow accused Washington of a “hypocritical spectacle” that does not pressure Israel.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said the draft was exceedingly politicised and contained an effective green light for Israel to mount a military operation in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, where more than 1.5 million Palestinians are sheltering.
Nebenzia said there was no call for a ceasefire in the resolution’s text and accused the US leadership of “deliberately misleading the international community”.
He told fellow ambassadors that if they passed the resolution, “you will cover yourselves in disgrace.”
On Friday, Algeria’s UN ambassador, Amar Bendjama, said that had the Council passed its February resolution, thousands of innocent lives could have been saved. More than 32,000 people – mostly women and children – have been killed since the war began last October.
These figures represent lives and “hopes that have been destroyed”, Bendjama said, adding that the US text made no mention of Israel’s responsibility for their deaths.
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