Tensions between the United States and Israel were exposed on Monday when Washington stood aside and allowed the UN Security Council to pass a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. <\/p>\n
The US decision to abstain on the vote prompted Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel a scheduled trip to the US by two of his top advisers, two Israeli officials said. <\/p>\n
The US had previously vetoed similar resolutions calling for a ceasefire. Its position evolved last week when on Friday, it put forward a ceasefire resolution tied tied to the release of hostages. That resolution fell when it was vetoed by Russia and China. The US abstention on Monday\u2019s vote allowed the latest resolution to pass, when the other 14 members of the 15-strong council voted yes. <\/p>\n
The US Ambassador\u00a0to\u00a0the United Nations\u00a0Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that while the latest resolution included edits requested by the US, Washington could not vote yes because it \u201cdid not agree with everything.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cA ceasefire could have come about months ago if Hamas had been willing to release hostages,\u201d the ambassador said, calling on member states and the Security Council to demand that Hamas \u201caccepts the deal on the table.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cAny ceasefire must come with the release of all hostages,\u201d\u00a0she added. <\/p>\n
The resolution, put forward by the 10 non-permanent members of the Security Council, demands an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan, the immediate and unconditional release of hostages and \u201cthe urgent need to expand the flow\u201d of aid into Gaza. <\/p>\n
UN Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres said a failure to implement the resolution would be \u201cunforgivable.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Security Council just approved a long-awaited resolution on Gaza, demanding an immediate ceasefire, and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. This resolution must be implemented. Failure would be unforgivable,\u201d Guterres wrote on X, previously known as Twitter. <\/p>\n
Both Hamas and the Palestinian authority welcomed the resolution, while Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan criticized the Security Council for passing a measure that called for a ceasefire \u201cwithout conditioning it on the release of the hostages.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cIt undermines the efforts to secure their release,\u201d he said at the United Nations. <\/p>\n
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on X his country would not abide by the resolution. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe state of Israel will not cease fire,\u201d Katz said. \u201cWe will destroy Hamas and continue to fight until the last of the hostages returns home.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Biden administration made the choice to abstain\u00a0rather than veto\u00a0the UN Security Council resolution over the weekend when they were able to work on changing certain parts of the resolution\u2019s text, according to a senior administration official. <\/p>\n
Another source familiar with the matter said that\u00a0the US had planned to veto, but there were intensive diplomatic efforts to find a compromise that put them in a position to abstain. <\/p>\n
Initially the text demanded a permanent ceasefire and did not mention negotiations to release hostages, and the US was able to push for the text to change so that it referenced a lasting ceasefire and included language about the ongoing hostage release efforts, the official said. For those reasons, the US believed that the resolution was consistent with US policy, the official said, a sentiment echoed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. <\/p>\n
\u201cBecause\u00a0the final text does not have key language we view as essential, notably a condemnation of Hamas, we could not support it. This failure to condemn Hamas is particularly difficult to understand coming days after the world once again witnessed the horrific acts terrorist groups commit,\u201d Blinken said in a statement. <\/p>\n
The UN vote on Monday came as tensions grow over a looming Israeli military operation in Gaza\u2019s southern city of Rafah. The US has been calling on Israel to explain how it will protect the 1.4 million Palestinians seeking refuge there ahead of the expected incursion, which the US said \u201cwould be a mistake.\u201d <\/p>\n
The UN Ambassador of the Palestinian Territories, Riyad Mansour,\u00a0said\u00a0the decision was a vote \u201cfor life to prevail.\u201d <\/p>\n
It has taken six months for the Security Council to demand an immediate ceasefire, and \u201cover 100,000 killed and maimed, two million displaced, and famine for this council to immediately demand an immediate ceasefire,\u201d Riyad said. <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi and Ron Dermer, a member of the war cabinet and close adviser to Netanyahu, had been scheduled to travel to Washington on Monday night to discuss the offensive and US alternatives, but the visit was canceled after the vote. <\/p>\n
National Security spokesman John Kirby\u00a0offered a fuller response to Netanyahu\u2019s decision to cancel the delegation, saying the US was disappointed by the decision to cancel the trip. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re very disappointed that they will not be coming to Washington, DC, to allow us to have a fulsome conversation with them about viable alternatives to going in on the ground in Rafah,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller called the cancelation \u201csurprising and unfortunate.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, the negotiations are not only centric around the prisoner exchange deal,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael\u00a0has not agreed to any of (Hamas) requests related to a complete ceasefire, the withdrawal of all forces from the Gaza Strip, even in stages, and the return of all displaced people to their homes,\u201d Naeim said. <\/p>\n\n
Tensions between the United States and Israel were exposed on Monday when Washington stood aside and allowed the UN Security Council to pass a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. The US decision to abstain on the vote prompted Israel\u2019s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel a scheduled trip to the US by <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":17249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17248","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17248\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}