The United States has blocked a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have recognised a Palestinian state, CNN reports.
CNN said that 12 members of the Security Council, on Thursday, had voted in favor of the resolution, while two countries, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, abstained.
However, the United States vetoed the resolution.
In a statement, the Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, criticized the US veto, saying it was “unfair, immoral, and unjustified, and defies the will of the international community”.
According to him, the international community strongly supports the State of Palestine obtaining full membership in the United Nations.
But Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz praised the US for vetoing what he called a “shameful proposal.”
“The proposal to recognize a Palestinian state, more than 6 months after the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and after the sexual crimes and other atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists was a reward for terrorism”, Katz wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, after the US veto.
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Vedant Patel, deputy spokesperson for the US State Department had announced earlier Thursday that the US would vote against the Security Council resolution.
He said the US has “been very clear, consistently, that premature actions in New York, even with the best intentions, will not achieve statehood for the Palestinian people,” referring to the headquarters of the United Nations.
Palestinian attempts for recognition as a full member state began in 2011. They are currently a non-member observer state, a status that was granted in November 2012.