US: Russia, China 'refuse to condemn Hamas for burning people'

Russia and China vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution Friday that condemned Hamas for its October 7 attack against Israel, which was authored by the United States. 

“Russia and China still could not bring themselves to condemn Hamas as terrorist attacks on October 7,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the 15-member body which has yet to take a stand against the terror group.

“Can we just pause on that for a moment?,” Thomas-Greenfield said. 

“Russia and China refuse to condemn Hamas for burning people alive, for gunning down innocent civilians at a concert, for raping women and girls, for taking hundreds of people hostage,” the ambassador said.

“This was the deadliest single attack on Jews since the Holocaust,” she explained as she referenced Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel.

During that attack over 1,200 people were killed and another 253 were taken hostage. Many of the victims were burned, dismembered, raped and tortured.

Failing the resolution

Thomas-Greenfield said that the failure to adopt the resolution was “really outrageous, and it's below the dignity of this body.”

She further charged that Hamas aside, Russia and China took this step purely because it was authored by the United States.

“This is not just cynical, it's also petty. Russia and China simply did not want to vote for a resolution that was penned by the United States because it would rather see us fail than to see this council succeed,” she charged.

“Let’s be honest,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “For all the fiery rhetoric, we all know that Russia and China are not doing anything diplomatically to advance a lasting peace or to meaningfully contribute to the humanitarian response effort.”

The US resolution had the support of 11 UNSC members, enough to pass the text. Three countries — Russia, China and Algeria — opposed it and Guyana abstained. 

Russia and China, however, are among five permanent council members who have veto power at the council and their negative votes on the text were enough to cause it to fail. 

The resolution had also called for an immediate six-week pause to the war and the release of the remaining 134 hostages.

The US had hoped the resolution would shore up negotiations for a hostage deal taking place Friday in Qatar. 

“We'll continue to work toward a deal alongside Qatar, and Egypt, and we will work with any council member that is seriously interested in adopting a resolution that will help make that deal possible,” she said.

Russia's ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said the resolution was "exceedingly politicized" and contained an effective green light for Israel to mount a military operation in Rafah, a city on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip where more than half of its 2.3 million residents have been sheltering in makeshift tents.

"This would free the hands of Israel and it would result in all of Gaza and its entire population having to face destruction, devastation, or expulsion," Nebenzia told the meeting.

He said a number of non-permanent members of the Security Council had drafted an alternative resolution and said there was no reason for members not to support it.'

Hamas responded to the votes on the resolution, "We express our appreciation for the position of Russia, China and Algeria, who in the Security Council rejected the biased American project of aggression against our people, and stressed the urgent humanitarian demand for an immediate halt to the Zionist war of annihilation that has been ongoing for more than five months."

China's UN ambassador Zhang Jun said the text proposed by the US was unbalanced and criticized it for not clearly stating its opposition to a planned military operation by Israel in Rafah in southern Gaza which he said could lead to severe consequences. He said Beijing also supported the alternative.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday that his country would work with Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to persuade Russia and China to back yet another alternative resolution at the United Nations for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Washington previously vetoed three draft resolutions, two of which would have demanded an immediate ceasefire.

Reuters and Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.