The United States blocked a UN Security Council resolution that would have urged Israel to stop its "excessive use of force" against the Palestinians, Reuters reported.
The text was proposed by Qatar, the Council’s only Arab member, in response to recent Israeli bombardments of the Gaza Strip that have so far claimed the lives of more than 18 Palestinians.
The draft statement also expressed concerns about Palestinian attacks on Israel and urged both sides to comply with international law and refrain from any steps that could escalate the situation.
Israel claims that the military operations in northern Gaza are aimed at deterring rocket attacks by Palestinian resistance groups. But Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya said the bombardments were aimed at shattering the will of the Palestinian people.
After blocking the draft statement, the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said that the text “was disproportionately critical of Israel, and unfairly so, and needlessly so,” adding that Washington, which has a veto on the Security Council, could not back it.
But Palestinian UN Observer, Riyad Mansour, accused the U.S. of “shielding and protecting Israeli activities and aggression against the Palestinian people.”
“It was obvious that many of their concerns were accommodated but yet they kept coming back and coming back for additional things. It was obvious they did not want the Security Council to have a position,” Mansour said.
The United States doesn’t have formal veto power when it comes to Council statements. However, it succeeded in blocking the draft because Council rules require that statements be backed by all 15 members.
In response, Qatar, which acts on behalf of the Arab group at the United Nations, the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement of 112 nations, immediately demanded an open council debate on the Middle East, which was scheduled for Monday afternoon.
“I don’t see that that meeting is going to be productive, because I don’t think the Security Council is an exercise in group therapy,” Bolton said.
But Mansour said he believed more than 150 UN member-states would address the meeting to show that the overwhelming majority of UN members were “on the side of justice and international law.”
Israel threatens to send troops back into Gaza
Israel threatened to send its ground troops back into Gaza despite its withdrawal from the territory last year, AFP reported.
On Thursday, a small army force entered Gaza through the Kissufim border gates for the first time since the September pullout. An Israeli army source claimed that the soldiers were on a “pinpointed” operation to search for explosives left by Palestinian fighters.
Two top army officials said today that ground operations could be launched in the future. "I do not rule out ground operations if requested by the southern command of Israel. If the time comes, we will launch them," Deputy Chief of Staff Moshe Kaplinski was quoted as saying by Israel’s Yediot Aharonot newspaper.
Kaplinski also admitted that the Israeli army extended a unilaterally imposed interdiction zone in the northern Gaza Strip, expanding the area subjected to repeated bombardment to just 100 meters from the nearest homes.
In an another interview published in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, Major General Yitzhak Harel said Israel could launch a large-scale ground operation in Gaza unless the rocket attacks cease. "We will continue escalating our actions... and it is possible that eventually we will launch a ground operation in Gaza," he said.
"We may even be on the verge of a large-scale ground operation in Gaza Strip and the West Bank," he said.
Despite its withdrawal from the territory, Israel continued its military operations in Gaza through air strikes, naval bombardments and cross-border artillery firing.
al Jazeera