Russia and China veto US resolution on ‘immediate’ Gaza ceasefire at UN

It is the latest in a line of ceasefire resolutions to have been voted down in recent months, with the US having exercised its own veto three times. The US resolution, which had undergone several drafts before the vote, declared the “imperative” of an “immediate and sustained ceasefire,” but did not make it a legally binding demand as previous resolutions had.

It did, however, mark the first time the US had backed any UN resolution urging an immediate ceasefire.

Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky said ahead of the vote that Moscow would not be satisfied “with anything that doesn’t call for an immediate ceasefire.”

China’s ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun, offered a similar explanation for his country’s veto, describing the final text as “ambiguous.”

The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 11 members in favour and three against, including Algeria, the Arab representative on the council. There was one abstention, from Guyana. As two of the five permanent security council members, the Russian and Chinese votes counted as vetoes.

Mr Jun said the draft did “not call for an immediate ceasefire nor does it even provide an answer to the question of realising a ceasefire in the short term. This is a clear deviation from the consensus of the council members and fell far short of the expectations of the international community.”