WASHINGTON faced an international storm of condemnation on Tuesday night after it vetoed a United Nations security council resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Britain abstained in the vote, but all of the remaining 13 security council members backed the resolution, reflecting the strong support from countries around the globe for ending the war, which started with the surprise attack by Hamas militants in southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 250 hostage.

Since then, more than 29,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s military offensive, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

China’s UN envoy Zhang Jun expressed “strong disappointment and dissatisfaction” with the veto by Washington, according to state news agency Xinhua.

“The US veto sends a wrong message, pushing the situation in Gaza into a more dangerous one,” said Mr Zhang, adding that objecting to a ceasefire in Gaza is “nothing different from giving the green light to the continued slaughter.”

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez also blasted the US, saying that by blocking the ceasefire call, US officials made themselves “accomplices of this genocide of Israel against Palestine.”

There was further criticism of the US veto from France, Norway Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority, among others.

It was the third US rejection of a security council resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza.

US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield claimed that the resolution, tabled by Algeria, would “negatively impact” sensitive negotiations on a hostage deal and a pause in fighting for at least six weeks.

Across Gaza, Israel’s killing spree continued, with at least 67 Palestinian lives lost today and on Tuesday.

Aid group Doctors Without Borders said that two people had been killed when a shelter housing its staff in the Gaza Strip was struck during an Israeli operation in an area where Palestinians have been told to seek shelter.

The attack took place in Muwasi, a sandy, mostly undeveloped strip of land along the coast that has been transformed into a sprawling tent camp with little in the way of basic services.

The World Food Programme (WFP) announced a pause in food and aid deliveries to northern Gaza on Tuesday after its drivers faced gunfire and violence from desperate residents swarming the lorries.

The UN agency said that one in six children under the age of two were acutely malnourished and people are dying of hunger-related causes.

“In these past two days, our teams witnessed unprecedented levels of desperation,” the WFP said.