Outside the meeting at UN headquarters in New York, a small but noisy protest calling for an end to the conflict was met by a large police presence.
The United States, a veto-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, accused those nations who supported Sunday’s meeting of “actively prolonging the war by spreading lies about Israel”.
“Israel has a right to decide what is necessary for its security and what measure measures are appropriate to end the threat posed by Hamas,” said US envoy to the UN Dorothy Shea.
Israel’s deputy ambassador to the UN Jonathan Miller said “pressure should not be placed on Israel, who suffered the most horrific attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, but on Hamas.”
Algeria’s Ambassador Amar Bendjama called for sanctions on Israel in response to its Gaza City plan.
“The hour has come to impose sanctions on the enemy of humanity,” he said.
“If it was another country, you would have been imposing sanctions a long time ago,” the Palestinian envoy Mansour said.
