Israel-Gaza war live: US risks ‘complicity in war crimes’, says Human Rights Watch, after veto for UN ceasefire resolution

Key events

Show key events only

Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature

The Israeli military believes it needs another 3-4 weeks to complete its military offensive in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to a report.

Citing a senior Israeli official, Israel’s Walla news reports that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) believes it needs a similar amount of time after that to wrap up the first stage of the war in Gaza, according to the Times of Israel.

The report says that the US has not given Israel a hard deadline, but that Washington has said that time is running out, it said.

According to the report, the Biden administration would be happy for the IDF to complete intensive operations by the end of the month, but Israel believes it needs until the end of January, it said. The official was quoted as saying:

The American message is that they would like to see us finish the fighting sooner, with less harm to Palestinian civilians and more humanitarian assistance for Gaza. We would also like this to happen, but the enemy does not always agree.

The US state department has denied it prevented the Palestinian foreign minister, Riyad Malki, from speaking to reporters during a visit to Washington DC.

Malki, at a joint press conference by the Arab and Turkish diplomats in the US capital, was asked by a reporter about an interview with Palestinian Authority (PA) prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh.

As we reported earlier, Shtayyeh told Bloomberg that he hoped Hamas could serve as a junior partner in governing Gaza after the war.

During the press conference in Washington, Saudi foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan quickly intervened, AP reported.

Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan during a press conference with Palestine’s Foreign Minister Riad Al-Malki. Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

The Saudi minister told journalists that the US government had imposed visa “restrictions on his excellency that do not allow him to respond to media questions”. He added that he believed the ban was a “historical” practice and that violating it would bring legal repercussions.

In a statement afterwards, the US state department said: “We have imposed no restrictions that prohibit individuals from speaking to the press.”

Tributes continue to pour in for the prominent Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, who friends said was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

Alareer, 44, was one of the leaders of a young generation of writers in Gaza who chose to write in English to tell their stories in the Palestinian territory.

He taught world literature and creative writing at the Islamic University of Gaza and edited two short story collections, Gaza Unsilenced and Gaza Writes Back: Short Stories from Young Writers in Gaza, Palestine.

Alareer, who fiercely denounced Israel and its policies towards the Palestinians, helped found We Are Not Numbers, which connected young Palestinian writers with mentors to tell stories that go beyond the numbers in the news.

Refaat Alareer on a speaking tour in the US in 2014. Photograph: Tony Heriza/AFSC

The Israeli military said two of its soldiers were seriously wounded in a failed attempt to free Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it killed numerous militants in the overnight operation, but was unable to rescue any hostages.

As we reported earlier, the armed wing of Hamas said an Israeli soldier who was being held hostage was killed in a clash between the militants and an Israeli special forces unit that was conducting a rescue operation. They identified the captive soldier as 25-year-old Sa’ar Baruch. Israel’s military had no comment on the claim.

US risks 'complicity in war crimes' by giving Israel weapons and 'diplomatic cover', says Human Rights Watch

The US risks “complicity in war crimes” by continuing to provide Israel with weapons and “diplomatic cover” as it commits “atrocities” in Gaza, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said.

The HRW UN director, Louis Charbonneau, posted a statement after the US vetoed a security council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in the Palestinian territory.

The veto by the US prevented the council from making some of the call Washington itself has been demanding, including compliance with international humanitarian law, protection of civilians and releasing all civilians held hostage, he wrote. The statement continues:

By continuing to provide Israel with weapons and diplomatic cover as it commits atrocities, including collectively punishing the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, the US risks complicity in war crimes.

Israel thanks US for vetoing ceasefire resolution

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, has thanked the US and Joe Biden for vetoing a draft security council resolution that demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

Posting to social media, Erdan praised the US president for “standing firmly by our side” and for showing “leadership and values”, adding:

On this Hanukkah holiday, a little of the light dispelled a lot of the darkness.

The UK ambassador to the UN, Barbara Woodward, has explained the decision to abstain from the UN resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

Britain backs “further and longer pauses” to get aid to Palestinians and to allow the release of Israeli hostages, Woodward said.

But she argued to the council that “we cannot vote in favour of a resolution which does not condemn the atrocities Hamas committed against innocent Israeli civilians” on 7 October, adding:

Calling for a ceasefire ignores the fact that Hamas has committed acts of terror and is still holding civilians hostage.

World Food Programme describes 'fear, chaos, despair' in Gaza

Carl Skau, deputy director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), has been in Gaza and paints a bleak picture of humanitarian aid failing to reach those in need.

A statement just released by the agency, a first-hand account written by Skau, makes for depressing reading, and shows how aid workers are facing almost impossible odds to keep providing relief in the face of an unrelenting onslaught from Israel’s military:

“Nothing quite prepared me for the fear, the chaos, and the despair we encountered,” he wrote.

Confusion at warehouses, distribution points with thousands of desperate hungry people, supermarkets with bare shelves, and overcrowded shelters with bursting bathrooms. The dull thud of bombs was the soundtrack for our day.

At a food distribution [point], one woman told me she lived with nine other families in one apartment. They take turns sleeping at night because not all could lay down at the same time.

Palestinians wait to receive food at a relief point in Gaza City on Thursday. Photograph: Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

He praised WFP teams as doing “incredible work” inside Gaza while living through “an immense humanitarian crisis, while also trying to tackle that crisis”. He said the agency had reached more than one million people with food so far.

They work resolutely every day, to prevent starvation among Gazans and keep finding creative solutions, despite the fear for their lives and the many challenges.

“But this is no longer tenable,” he said:

With law and order breaking down, any meaningful humanitarian operation is impossible. With just a fraction of the needed food supplies coming in, a fatal absence of fuel, interruptions to communications systems and no security for our staff or for the people we serve at food distributions, we cannot do our job.

People in Gaza are desperate. You can see fear in the eyes of women and children. Gazans are living packed into unhealthy shelters or on the streets as winter closes in, they are sick, and they do not have enough food.

Here are some of the latest images we have received over the newswires from Gaza.

Injured Palestinian people are carried after Israeli bombing in the Al-Amal neighbourhood, west of Khan Yunis Governorate, south of the Gaza Strip. Photograph: Saher Alghorra/ZUMA Press Wire/ShutterstockA wounded Palestinian woman sits on the floor in Nasser hospital following Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Photograph: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/ReutersA wounded Palestinian child sits on the floor of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. Photograph: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/ReutersA photo taken while embedded with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shows a view of a damaged building in the Palestinian town of Beit Lahia, on the outskirts of the city of Gaza, northern Gaza Strip. Photograph: Atef Safadi/EPA

Palestine UN observer: US ceasefire veto a 'turning point in history'

The US veto of a United Nations resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza is “a turning point in history”, according to Riyad Mansour, the permanent observer of the state of Palestine to the UN.

Mansour joined Russia (which failed to acknowledge its own actions in Ukraine while denouncing the “bloodbath” in Gaza) in a strongly worded address to the UN security council following the vote:

This is a moment of truth. This is a turning point in history. It is beyond regrettable, it is disastrous, that the security council was again prevented from rising to this moment to uphold its clear responsibilities in the face of this grave crisis threatening human lives and threatening regional and international peace and security.

Millions of Palestinian lives hang in the balance. Every single one of them is sacred, worth saving.

[But] instead of allowing this council to uphold its mandate by finally making a clear call after two months of massacres 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?

Those who were advocating for a prolonging of the assault on the one hand, while also pleading against the commission of atrocity on the other hand, should be convinced by now that the prolongation of this war, obviously, implies the continued commission of atrocities, the loss of more innocent lives, more destruction.

Hundreds of people will be killed by this time tomorrow. Then hundreds more, and then thousands. Children will be killed, orphaned, wounded, disabled for life, not by mistake, but by design, because the killers have no regard whatsoever for Palestinian life.

Russia: US and UK 'complicit to merciless Israeli bloodbath'

Russia was scathing in its criticism of the US and UK for respectively voting against and abstaining from the vote to support a resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying “history will judge the actions of Washington DC”.

Dmitry Polyanskiy, deputy charge d’affaires of the Russian Federation, told the UN security council after the vote failed:

One can speak cynically with nice empty words about democracy, human rights, women, peace, security, rules, order, as much as you like. However, the real value of those we have just witnessed when two members of the security council preferred to remain complicit to the merciless Israeli bloodbath.

I am confident that the outcome of our vote has resounded painfully in the hearts of ordinary people in the US and the UK, whose calls for peace and common sense have gone unheeded by the ruling elites of those countries. I’m confident that they will still express their opinion.

We in the council have nothing left to do other than redoubling or tripling our efforts to try to come up with a decision that would alleviate the suffering of civilians within the limited toothless bounds that we have left to act in thanks to Washington and London.

It’s important to ensure the implementation of [the] resolution regardless of how we do it.

US envoy criticises 'flawed' resolution 'divorced from reality'

Robert Wood, the US deputy ambassador to the UN security council, was critical of colleagues for introducing a “flawed” resolution that did not include condemnation of Hamas:

All of our recommendations were ignored. And the result of this rushed process was an imbalanced resolution that was divorced from reality. It would not move the needle forward on the ground in any concrete way.

We still cannot comprehend why the resolution’s authors declined to include language condemning Hamas’s horrific terrorist attack on Israel, an attack that killed over 1,200 people, women, children, the elderly, people from a range of nationalities burned alive, gunned down subjected to obscene sexual violence.

We are very disappointed that for the victims of these heinous acts, the resolution’s authors offered not their condolences or condemnation of their murders. It’s unfathomable. Nor is there condemnation of the sexual violence unleashed by Hamas on October 7.

US blames Hamas for decision to veto Gaza ceasefire resolution

The US has blamed Hamas’s refusal to keep to the agreement to release young female hostages, and a failure of the United Nations to condemn the group’s attacks on Israel, for its decision to veto the UN security council resolution calling for a Gaza ceasefire.

Robert Wood, deputy US ambassador to the UN, just told the council a ceasefire would “plant the seeds for the next war”:

Even as we have supported the right of another member state to defend its people against heinous atrocities and acts of terrorism, the US at the highest levels has undertaken intensive diplomacy to save lives, and lay a foundation for durable peace.

American diplomacy open the way for the first trucks that flowed into Gaza. With aid in partnership with Qatar and Egypt, it helped reunite more than 100 hostages with their loved ones and dramatically expanded aid to civilians in Gaza during a seven-day long humanitarian pause.

Hamas however, has a different set of goals. Its refusal to release young women hostages led to a breakdown in the pause and resumption of the fighting. This council’s failure to condemn Hamas’s October 7 terrorist attacks, including its acts of sexual violence and other unthinkable evils, is a serious moral failure.

It underscores the fundamental disconnect between the discussions that we have been having in this chamber and the realities on the ground. An undeniable part of that reality is that if Israel unilaterally laid down its weapons today as some member states have called for, Hamas would continue to hold hostages.

Hamas continues to pose a threat to Israel and remain in charge of Gaza. That is not a threat that any one of our governments would allow to continue to remain on our own borders.

For that reason, while the US strongly supports a durable peace, in which both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and security, we do not support calls for an immediate ceasefire. This would only plant the seeds for the next war.

US blocks UN security council resolution for immediate ceasefire in Gaza

The US has vetoed a UN security council vote on a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

The UK abstained from the vote.

The UN representative for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), speaking before the security council vote, said at least 97 members states have co-sponsored its resolution.

The resolution “is clear in its intention – an immediate humanitarian ceasefire”, he said.

Saving lives right now, must supersede all other considerations, he added.

The UN security council session has resumed and is expected to vote on a resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

We will bring you the results of the vote once they are in.

A UN security council meeting on Gaza, at UN headquarters in New York City on 8 December. Photograph: Yuki Iwamura/AFP/Getty Images

Biden administration asks Congress to approve 45,000 shells for Israeli tanks - report

The Biden administration has asked Congress to approve the sale of 45,000 shells for Israel’s Merkava tanks to be used in its offensive in Gaza, Reuters is reporting, citing a US official and former US official.

The potential sale is worth more than $500m (£399m) and is under informal review by the Senate foreign relations and House of Representatives foreign affairs committees, it said.

The US state department is pushing the congressional committees to quickly approve the transaction, a former state department spokesperson, Josh Paul, told Reuters. He said:

This went to committees earlier this week and they are supposed to have 20 days to review Israel cases. State [department] is pushing them to clear now.

The UN security council vote on backing an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza has been delayed again.

The vote was scheduled to take place about half an hour ago, after it was first delayed again in the morning.

Ambassadors are now meeting behind closed doors over the final text of the resolution, after which a vote should commence.

The draft demands an immediate humanitarian ceasefire as well as an immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. It also reiterates the demand of the council for all warring parties to comply with their obligations under international law, notably with regard to protection of civilians in both Palestine and Israel.

Draft resolutions do not represent an official position of the security council until they are adopted.