The United Nations Security Council on Monday demanded an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian Hamas fighters and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages after the United States abstained from voting.
The remaining 14 members of the council voted for the resolution proposed by the 10 elected members of the body.
“The Palestinian people have suffered greatly. This bloodbath has continued for too long. It is our duty to end this bloodbath before it is too late,” Algeria’s UN ambassador Amar Bendjama told the council after the vote.
Israel’s Army Radio announced shortly before the start of the council meeting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would cancel a planned delegation to Washington if the US did not veto the resolution.
Washington has had an aversion to the word truce earlier in the nearly six-month-old war in the Gaza Strip and used its protective shield of the veto, US ally Israel, when it retaliated against Hamas for an October 7 attack that Israel said killed 1,200 people.
But amid mounting global pressure for a truce in a war that has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, the US abstained from voting on Monday to allow the Security Council to demand an immediate ceasefire for the Muslim fasting month of Ramazan, which ends. in two weeks.
The resolution also calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. Israel says Hamas took 253 hostages during its October 7 attack.
