Live Updates: Netanyahu’s Arrest Sought by International Criminal Court

The court’s chief prosecutor had requested the warrants in May. The warrants issued Thursday have not been made public, but the court said they include accusations of using of starvation as a weapon of war and “intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s office swiftly rejected what it called “absurd and false accusations,” and insisted that Israel would keep fighting in Gaza to defend its citizens. The Israeli leader “will not surrender to the pressures; he will not recoil or withdraw until all of the war’s goals — that were set at the start of the battle — are achieved,” the office said in a statement.

The decision places Mr. Netanyahu, the leader of one of the United States’ closest allies, in the same lineup as President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, the target of an arrest warrant issued last year. Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant would face the risk of arrest should they travel to one of the court’s 124 member nations, including most European countries, though not the United States.

Hamas officials celebrated the warrants against Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant — without mentioning the accusations against Mr. Deif. Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas official, said that whether or not any arrests are made, “the truth that has been revealed is that international justice is with us and against” Israel. In Gaza, Palestinians expressed cautious optimism and hoped the news could signal an end to more than a year of war.

Here is what else to know:

• Global outcry: Israel has faced increasing condemnation over the war against Hamas in Gaza, where more than 44,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gazan Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Israel maintains that it fights in accordance with the international laws of war.

• Hamas officials killed: The I.C.C. chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, in May had also sought arrest warrants for Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, and Ismail Haniyeh, another top official. But both have since been killed. Israel claimed it killed Mr. Deif in an airstrike in Gaza in July.

• Lebanon talks: The court’s announcement came while a top Biden administration envoy, Amos Hochstein, was in Israel and scheduled to meet with Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Hochstein has been in the region pushing for a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group that has been clashing with Israel over the last year in solidarity with Hamas.

• Autocratic company: Mr. Netanyahu is among only a handful of world leaders sought for arrest by the I.C.C. They include Mr. Putin, the Russian president, over the invasion of Ukraine; Muammar Gaddafi, who ruled Libya until his death in 2011; and Koudou Laurent Gbagbo, the president of Ivory Coast, for crimes against humanity in the wake of the disputed 2010 election.

The United States, which has been involved in major conflicts since the court’s creation, has abstained from membership, seeking to prevent the tribunal from being used to prosecute Americans.

More than 120 countries are members of the court, including many European nations, and members are formally committed to carrying out arrest warrants if a wanted person steps on their soil. But powerful nations including China, India, Russia and Israel, like the United States, are not members.

U.S. presidential administrations from both parties have argued in the past that the court should not exercise its authority over citizens from countries that are not a member of the court.

“There remains fear of actually being investigated by the court for the commission of atrocity crimes, given the military projection of both countries regionally or globally, and fear of being prosecuted for political, rather than evidence-based, reasons,” said David Scheffer, a former U.S. ambassador and a chief negotiator of the statute that established the court.

Mr. Scheffer added that there were strong rebuttals to those fears, including that “no country’s leaders should, as a matter of policy and of law, enjoy impunity for intentionally committing genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.” This argument, he said in an email, “has been pursued with determination (and American support) in Ukraine, which shortly will become the 125th member of the I.C.C.”

The Biden administration swiftly denounced the I.C.C.’s decision on Thursday.

“The United States fundamentally rejects the court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials,” a spokesman for President Biden’s National Security Council said in a statement. “We remain deeply concerned by the prosecutor’s rush to seek arrest warrants and the troubling process errors that led to this decision.”

Here’s a look at the hunger crisis in Gaza and its international impact.

What is the situation in Gaza?

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in Gaza since the armed group Hamas led a deadly attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that prompted Israel’s retaliation, and large parts of the enclave have been destroyed.

At the beginning of the war, Mr. Gallant announced a complete siege of Gaza and said that no food, water or electricity would get in. The blockade lasted for around three weeks, at which point limited supplies resumed, but the United Nations and aid groups say that Israel has imposed stringent conditions that have severely limited how much food reaches Gaza’s population of around 2.2 million people.

The New York Times found in a report this month that Israel was letting significantly less food and supplies into the territory than in the period before a warning from the Biden administration to let in more aid.

Israeli officials say that more aid has come into the enclave than has been distributed and that aid workers have failed to deliver it effectively. They say that aid is screened before it enters Gaza to make sure it does not contain items, such as metal objects, that could potentially be used by Hamas. Some Israeli politicians have also argued that food should not enter Gaza while Hamas continues to hold Israeli hostages.

How bad is the hunger crisis?

Earlier this month, a U.N. panel warned that famine is imminent in northern Gaza, where for weeks Israeli forces have been conducting an operation that the military says is aimed at preventing Hamas from re-establishing a foothold.

The panel, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, said that 13 months of war had created “an imminent and substantial likelihood of famine” because of the “rapidly deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip.”

Aid groups point out that Gaza had low rates of malnutrition before the war, suggesting that the conflict is responsible for the crisis.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the main U.N. agency that aids Palestinians, said on Thursday that people in northern Gaza were “trapped with no safe place to go.” He said that they had been deprived of humanitarian aid for 40 days as a result of the military action.

UNRWA also said that in the cities of Deir al Balah, in central Gaza, and Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, bakeries supported by humanitarian aid could run out of flour within days.

“Delays in fuel and flour deliveries are compounding the crisis, leaving countless people without access to bread,” it said on social media.

What do the arrest warrants say?

The court did not release the warrants, but it said in a news release about its decision that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity” between Oct. 8 of last year and May 20, when the chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, requested the warrants.

It also said there was reason to believe that they impeded humanitarian aid for Gazans in violation of international law.

The restrictions on aid and cutoffs of electricity and fuel supplies “also had a severe impact on the availability of water in Gaza and the ability of hospitals to provide medical care,” the court said. It said that the decisions to increase the flow of aid were often conditional and made in response to international pressure.

The court also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas’s military chief, Muhammad Deif, accusing him, too, of crimes against humanity. Israel has said that it killed Mr. Deif in an airstrike, but the court said it could not confirm whether he was dead.

If Mr. Deif is found to have violated international law, then he should be prosecuted as well, Mr. Skeek said — “though I don’t think he did,” he added.

Layan Shoashaa, a 20-year-old student of multimedia graphics from Gaza City, embraced the news of the warrants for the two Israeli leaders, but with reservations.

“This war has made it clear that the balance of power heavily favors Israel and its allies, not us,” she said at a cafe in the city of Deir al-Balah, where her displaced family has been staying. “I cannot see this as a historic step, for justice delayed is justice denied.”

Still, she said, any step taken against the two Israeli leaders brought “a glimmer of hope.”

Some hoped the news might spell the end of the war in Gaza, which began after the Hamas-led attack on Israel a little more than a year ago. Rami Moleg, a 44-year-old father of four, described himself as “very pleased.”

“I hope this means the war is coming to an end,” he said. “Netanyahu has been under internal pressure already, and I hope this adds huge international pressure that would lead him to quit or be toppled.”

As long as Mr. Netanyahu is in charge, the war will continue, Mr. Moleg believes. But he said he thought Mr. Deif was probably dead.

“I don’t care much about his future or the future of Hamas,” he said. “I care about my own future and the future of my children.”

Ahmed Jarbou, 23, who was hanging out with a group of friends in Deir al-Balah, said he doubted that much good would results from the warrants.

“Palestinians have seen countless resolutions in our favor from the Security Council, yet nothing tangible ever comes of them,” he said. “I fear this might just be another empty gesture. But I still hold a small hope that it leads to action soon, perhaps even a temporary cease-fire to ease the dire situation in Gaza.”

Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting.

While the United States and Israel are not signatories to the court, 124 nations are, and they are formally committed to carrying out the arrest warrants if Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Gallant or any other wanted person steps on their soil, even if by accident, like a plane malfunction requiring an unscheduled landing.

The arrest warrants “are binding on all parties to the I.C.C.,” said Philippe Sands, an expert in international law who has argued before the court. “If they set foot on the territory of a state party, that state party has an obligation to arrest and transfer to The Hague. That’s pretty binding.”

But states do not always comply, especially when powerful countries are involved. Mongolia, an I.C.C. member deeply dependent on Russia for fuel, not only did not arrest its president, Vladimir V. Putin, who is wanted by the court on charges of war crimes stemming from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it greeted him with an official state ceremony in September. South Africa, another I.C.C. member, avoided the dilemma of whether to arrest him last year when he decided not to attend a large summit in person.

And while President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil had said that there was “no reason” that Mr. Putin should fear attending the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro this year, Mr. Putin sent his foreign minister instead.

In the case of Israel, Mr. Netanyahu has his own political allies among I.C.C. member nations. Argentina is now led by President Javier Milei, who has said that the United States and Israel are Argentina’s main allies. On Thursday, Mr. Milei immediately criticized the I.C.C.’s ruling against Mr. Netanyahu, saying it “ignores Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself in the face of constant attacks by terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.”

He stopped short of saying Mr. Netanyahu would be protected from arrest if he visited Argentina.

But the world will be a smaller place for Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant, who will have to plan their trips very carefully, said Daniel Reisner, a lawyer and former head of the international law branch of the Israeli military’s legal division.

Many in Israel and in the American Congress will judge the warrants as based on politics and not international law, he said. “Irrespective of what people think of Netanyahu or Gallant, neither of them committed genocide or war crimes, and that the court alleges otherwise is an indication of the travesty of international law when facing highly politicized disputes,” he said.

If the court has enhanced the reputation of international institutions in the non-Western world, it may also have damaged itself. The American Congress threatened sanctions against the court when its prosecutor first asked for the arrest warrants to be issued.

Because of the Gaza war, Israel’s reputation is already poor in large parts of the world, said Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli analyst and pollster.

“The warrants could prop up the legitimacy of international institutions already damaged from so many failures, and this could revive the sense of some consistent application of the law to Western countries, even those backed by the United States,” she said. “But the U.S. will go ballistic, and it could also begin a significant undermining of the court by the world’s most powerful nation.”

Jack Nicas contributed reporting from Jerusalem and Mark Landler in London.

Yair Lapid, the leader of the political opposition and a fierce critic of Mr. Netanyahu, called the warrants “a prize for terror.”

“Israel is protecting itself against terrorist organizations who attacked, murdered and raped our citizens,” he said.

Mr. Netanyahu’s office in a statement rejected what it called “the absurd and false accusations” and said Israel would continue its military campaign in Gaza, which began more than a year ago after Hamas militants attacked Israel in October 2023.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will not surrender to the pressures,” his office added. “He will not recoil or withdraw until all of the war’s goals — that were set at the start of the battle — are achieved.”

The warrants issued Thursday include accusations of using starvation as a weapon of war and “intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.” Mr. Netanyahu has pushed back on the allegation of starving Palestinians in Gaza, pointing to the trucks of food that Israel has permitted to enter Gaza.

While Israel has allowed food to enter Gaza, hunger in the territory has remained widespread. Humanitarian workers have said looting by criminal gangs has hampered the delivery of aid and accused the Israeli military of denying convoys permission to deliver goods to warehouses.

Israel has blamed the aid organizations for inefficiency and contended that Hamas has stolen aid, too.

Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, said the court was experiencing “a dark moment” and asserted it had “lost all legitimacy for its existence and activity.”

“It acted as a political tool in the service of the most extreme terrorists working to undermine peace, security and stability in the Middle East,” he said. “This is an attack on the most threatened and targeted nation in the world — also the only country in the region openly called for and acted against by other nations seeking its elimination.”

Benny Gantz, a prominent member of the opposition, said the I.C.C. decision was a “shameful stain of historic proportion that will never be forgotten.”

The I.C.C. also said Thursday that it had issued a warrant for the arrest of Muhammad Deif, Hamas’s military chief, for crimes against humanity, including murder, kidnapping and sexual violence. Israel said in August that it had killed Mr. Deif, but the I.C.C. said it could not confirm his death.

Despite the show of solidarity among politicians, some Israelis offered criticism of the government.

Yonatan Shamriz‎, the brother of an Israeli hostage accidentally killed by the Israeli military in Gaza in December, said the warrants were a “difficult decision, one that stains our country and places it alongside nations we would not want to resemble.”

The warrants could have been avoided, he said in a social media post, if Israel had established a national commission of inquiry that proved “we are examining ourselves and learning lessons.”

Other Israelis went further, defending the court’s decision. B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, said the arrest warrants were “one of the lowest points in Israeli history” and called for them to be enforced.

“It isn’t surprising that the evidence indicates that Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Gallant are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity,” it said. “Personal accountability for decision makers is a key element in the struggle for justice and freedom for all human beings living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.”

Johnatan Reiss contributed reporting.

The text of the warrants was kept secret to protect witnesses, the court said in its statement, but the judges released some details “since conduct similar to that addressed in the warrant of arrest appears to be ongoing.”

The court said that there were reasonable grounds to find that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the former Israeli defense minister, bear responsibility for “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s office rejected the assertions, calling them “absurd and false” and accusing the court of being motivated by antisemitism and hatred of the Jewish state. Israeli officials — as well as some aid workers — have blamed rampant lawlessness in Gaza, including attacks by armed gangs on convoys ferrying relief, as a major reason for the dire conditions.

The court said some Gazans had died from deprivation in part imposed by Israeli restrictions on the flow of aid, providing legal grounds for suspected murder. The judges also argued that restrictions on food and medicine to Gazans as a whole could amount to the crime of persecution under international law.

The number of relief convoys reaching desperate Gazans has fluctuated significantly over the course of the war. Health officials in Gaza say malnutrition has played a role in the deaths of at least some people, including young children.

Aid officials say Israel has often impeded their work, not allowing them to bring in enough food, medicine and fuel. Israeli officials have sometimes argued that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza; at other times, they have blamed aid organizations, saying they lack the logistical capacity to effectively ferry supplies through the enclave or prevent looting.

But the court said that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gallant had “intentionally and knowingly” deprived Gazans of “objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water and medicine and medical supplies.”

Israel has made some changes, including by opening new land crossings for aid to enter Gaza. But the court argued that those changes only came in response to pressure from the Biden administration and the international community, not from an Israeli attempt to comply with international law.

“In any event, the increases in humanitarian assistance were not sufficient to improve the population’s access to essential goods,” the court said.

Separately, both Israeli leaders bore responsibility “as civilian superiors” for “intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population,” the court said. The judges said they had found two attacks that were “intentionally directed against civilians,” though it did not elaborate on what they were.

The court also issued an arrest warrant for Muhammad Deif, Hamas’s military chief, who oversaw the Oct. 7 attacks. Israel announced in August that it had killed Mr. Deif in an airstrike in southern Gaza that killed dozens of Palestinians, although Hamas has yet to confirm his death.

The court said its prosecutors were “not in a position to determine whether Mr. Deif has been killed or remains alive,” so had decided to issue the arrest warrants anyway.

As the commander of Hamas’s armed wing, Mr. Deif plotted the attacks alongside other Hamas leaders. In a sweeping, coordinated assault, Hamas fighters broke through Israel’s defenses and led an attack that killed about 1,200 people and took more than 200 others hostage in Gaza.

In its statement, the court said there were reasonable grounds to hold Mr. Deif responsible for numerous crimes against humanity, including murder, torture, sexual violence, and hostage taking.

Karim Khan, the court’s chief prosecutor, had also requested arrest warrants for Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader, and Ismail Haniyeh, who led the group’s political bureau. Mr. Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in July, in an operation widely attributed to Israel, while Israeli troops killed Mr. Sinwar in October. Both of their deaths were confirmed by Hamas.

Here is a closer look at some of the leaders for whom warrants have been issued by the court since its creation more than two decades ago.

Vladimir Putin of Russia

The court issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Putin in March 2023 over crimes committed during Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including for the forcible deportation of children. A warrant was also issued for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.

Mr. Putin has since made several international trips, including to China, which is not a member of the court. His first state visit to an I.C.C. member since the warrant was issued was in September, to Mongolia, where he received a red-carpet welcome.

Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan

The court issued warrants in 2009 and 2010 for Mr. al-Bashir, citing genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in the western region of Darfur.

The court has also charged several other Sudanese officials, including a former defense minister, Abdel Raheem Muhammad Hussein, with crimes in Darfur.

In 2015, Mr. al-Bashir traveled to an African Union summit in South Africa in defiance of the warrant, but was not arrested.

Mr. al-Bashir, 80, was deposed in 2019 after three decades in power, and also faces charges in Sudan related to the 1989 coup that propelled him to power. He could receive the death sentence or life in prison on those charges if convicted.

Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya

The court issued arrest warrants in 2011 for Libya’s then leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, along with one of his sons and his intelligence chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity during the first two weeks of the uprising in Libya that led to a NATO bombing campaign.

Mr. Qaddafi was killed by rebels in Libya months later and never appeared before the court. His son remains at large.

William Ruto of Kenya

The court dropped a case in 2016 against William Ruto, then Kenya’s deputy president, who had been charged in 2011 with crimes against humanity and other offenses in connection with post-election violence in Kenya in 2007 and 2008. Mr. Ruto was elected president of Kenya in 2022.

Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast

The former president of Ivory Coast, Laurent Gbagbo, was also indicted by the court in 2011 over acts committed during violence after the country’s elections in 2010.

Mr. Gbagbo and another leader in Ivory Coast, Charles Blé Goudé, were acquitted in 2021.

One practical consequence of an I.C.C. arrest warrant: It will complicate Netanyahu’s travel. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has severely curtailed his trips abroad since the I.C.C. issued a warrant for his arrest last year in relation to the invasion of Ukraine.

Putin has only tested the warrant once — in September, when he visited Mongolia, a country highly dependent on Russia.

In May, Mr. Khan asked the court to issue warrants for Hamas’s top leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar; its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh; and its military chief, Muhammad Deif. He accused them of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the killing of civilians and the capture of hostages during the October 2023 attack, as well as maltreatment of and sexual violence against hostages during their captivity in Gaza.

The requests required approval by judges from the I.C.C., the world’s top criminal court. That took months. In the meantime, Mr. Haniyeh was assassinated in the Iranian capital, Tehran, in July, a killing widely attributed to Israel. The court subsequently announced that it had terminated proceedings against him. And Israeli forces killed Mr. Sinwar in a firefight in Gaza in October.

As for Mr. Deif, Israel claimed to have killed him in an airstrike in Gaza in October. On Thursday, the court said it was “not in a position to determine whether Mr. Deif has been killed or remains alive” and was therefore issuing the warrant for his arrest.

Matthew Mpoke Bigg contributed reporting.

Speaking to reporters in Beirut on Wednesday, Mr. Hochstein said he would go to Israel “to try to bring this to a close if we can.”

After days of tense calm in the Lebanese capital, Israel began a wave of bombardment overnight on Thursday in the Dahiya, the densely packed area south of the city where Hezbollah holds sway. The airstrikes went on throughout the day, with the Israeli military saying it targeted command headquarters and military infrastructure belonging to the group.

Nearly 50 people were killed on Thursday amid heavy Israeli strikes in Lebanon’s east, the local governor, Bachir Khodr, said on social media.

Israel’s attacks in and around Beirut intensified in the run-up to Mr. Hochstein’s visit to Lebanon, a strategy that analysts said was intended to pressure Hezbollah into agreeing to a cease-fire on terms favorable to Israel.

There still appear to be a number of sticking points that would need to be hashed out in any truce deal, including Israeli officials’ demand that they be able to act militarily against Hezbollah if it were to break the terms of an agreement. That is likely to be viewed by Hezbollah and the Lebanese government as an infringement on the country’s sovereignty.

In a televised address on Wednesday during Mr. Hochstein’s visit to Beirut, Hezbollah’s new leader, Naim Qassem, said that the group had provided its response to the U.S. cease-fire proposal, and that peace now depended on Israel’s response and the “seriousness” of Mr. Netanyahu.

If negotiations broke down, he warned, Hezbollah was prepared for a “long war.”

Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah, a group backed by Iran, escalated in September, and has killed more than 3,500 people in Lebanon and displaced almost a quarter of the population. It is now the bloodiest conflict inside Lebanon since the country’s civil war, which lasted from 1975 to 1990.

Here is what else to know:

• West Bank raid: Israeli security forces killed nine Palestinians in and around Jenin, in the occupied West Bank, over the last two days, according to a statement by the Israeli Army and the Shin Bet security service. The deaths occurred in an Israeli airstrike and in gun battles during a two-day raid that the Israeli authorities said targeted Palestinian militants. Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, said that the raid caused extensive damage to infrastructure and that more than 19 people were injured.

• Assassination plot: Three Palestinian residents of Hebron in the West Bank were indicted in an Israeli military court this week on charges of plotting to assassinate the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and his son, according to a joint statement by the Israel Police and Shin Bet. The authorities accused the primary defendant, Ismail Ibrahim Awadi, of monitoring Mr. Ben-Gvir’s travel routes and methods and of contacting Hezbollah and Hamas militants with the aim of getting weapons.

Adam Rasgon and Myra Noveck contributed reporting.

The United States said it vetoed the resolution, the fifth the Council has taken up, because it did not make the cease-fire contingent on the release of the hostages held in Gaza. The resolution does call for the release of all hostages, but the wording suggests that their release would come only after a cease-fire were implemented.

The veto was the fourth time the United States blocked an effort by the Council to demand a cease-fire since the war began over a year ago, when Hamas led an attack on Israel and took more than 200 people hostage. More than 40,000 people have been killed in Gaza over the course of the war, according to the local health authorities, and a U.N.-backed panel warned that the territory faces the risk of famine.

The veto comes as Washington has been working for months to help negotiate a cease-fire between the parties and a deal to release the hostages. About 100 hostages remain in Gaza, and the Israeli authorities believe that around a third are dead.

“We could not support an unconditional cease-fire that failed to release the hostages,” said Robert A. Wood, an American ambassador to the United Nations. “These two urgent goals are inextricably linked. This resolution abandoned that necessity.”

The resolution called for an immediate and unconditional cease-fire, the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, increased and unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid and for all parties to enable the battered Palestinian aid agency UNRWA to carry out its work in the territory.

The resolution was put forth by 10 nonpermanent members of the Security Council: Algeria, Ecuador, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and Switzerland.

“It is a sad day for the Security Council, for the United Nations and for the international community,” said Algeria’s ambassador, Amar Bendjama. He said the 14 members who supported the resolution had spoken for the wider international community.

The draft resolution was negotiated for weeks, Guyana’s ambassador, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, said ahead of the vote. She said the Council needed to respond to concerns “over the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza,” and particularly the dire situation in northern Gaza.

Although Security Council resolutions are considered to be international law, the Council has no means of enforcing resolutions. It could impose punitive measures, such as sanctions, but that would also require member states to agree.

The Security Council, whose permanent members are divided over the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, has struggled to speak in one voice and play an effective role in mediating or ending these conflicts. The United States’ staunch support for Israel, and the resulting deadlock over Gaza in the Council, has generated criticism and frustration from the wider U.N. membership, including from some of America’s closest allies, the permanent council members Britain and France.

The Council has tried to bring the war in Gaza to the table for action in the past year with multiple resolutions. The United States blocked three previous resolutions calling for a cease-fire and release of hostages saying at the time that Israel had the right to defend itself and it was not yet time for the war to end.

Russia and China vetoed an American resolution in March that called for “an immediate and sustained cease-fire,” in a vote in which Algeria joined them and Guyana abstained. That month, the United States abstained from voting on a resolution that called for a temporary halt to the fighting for the month of Ramadan.