Live Updates: US veto nod Israel to continue Gaza war crimes - Palestine

Saturday, December 9, 2023

04:30 GMT - Hamas condemns US veto of proposed ceasefire

Hamas resistance group has strongly condemned the US veto that blocked a proposed United Nations Security Council demand for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, a senior Hamas official said in an official statement, saying that the group considers Washington's move"unethical and inhumane."

"The US obstruction of the issuance of a ceasefire resolution is a direct participation with the [Israeli] occupation in killing our people and committing more massacres and ethnic cleansing," Ezzat El-Reshiq, a member of the group's political bureau, said.

Decrying a "spiralling humanitarian nightmare", UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres declared that nowhere in Gaza was safe for civilians, hours before the US vetoed a Security Council demand for a humanitarian ceasefire.

04:00 GMT - Palestine's UN envoy calls US veto 'disastrous'

Palestine's UN envoy Riyad al Mansour has slammed UN Security Council's failure to adopt draft resolution seeking truce in Israel's war on Gaza, saying "war criminals [Israel] have been given more time to perpetuate their crimes".

"Instead of allowing this council to uphold its mandate by finally making a clear call, after two months, that atrocities must end, the war criminals are given more time to perpetuate their crimes. How can this be justified? How can anyone justify the slaughter of an entire people?" he said.

Mansour reiterated his call for a ceasefire, saying "every further day means lives lost, people killed at an unprecedented pace in modern history."

03:40 GMT - Russia says US issued 'death sentence to thousands'

Russia's deputy UN ambassador Dmitry Polyansky has called the failed UNSC vote "one of the darkest days in the history of the Middle East" and accused the United States of issuing "a death sentence to thousands, if not tens of thousands more civilians in Palestine and Israel, including women and children."

He said "history will judge Washington's actions" in the face of what he called a "merciless Israeli bloodbath."

03:00 GMT - Biden administration presses Congress to approve tank shells for Israel

The Biden administration has asked Congress to approve the sale of 45,000 shells for Israel's Merkava tanks for use in its offensive against Hamas in Gaza, according to a US official and a former US official.

The request is being made even as concerns grow about the use of US weapons in a war that has killed thousands of civilians in the Palestinian enclave since Israel's invasion.

The potential sale, worth more than $500 million, is not part of President Joe Biden's $110.5 billion supplemental request that includes funding for Ukraine and Israel. It is under informal review by the Senate Foreign Relations and House of Representatives Foreign Affairs committees, which allows members the privilege to stall the sale, or have informal discussions with the administration about concerns.

For our live updates from Friday (December 8) click here.