The UN Security Council fails to pass a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza on the same day Israel's Prime Minister vowed to send troops into Rafah without US support if necessary.
The Russian deputy ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, warned reporters on Thursday: “We are not satisfied with anything which doesn’t call for an immediate ceasefire.”
He argued that the effect of making a ceasefire conditional on the release of all hostages would be to endorse leaving hundreds of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians exposed to continued Israeli attacks until the point when Hamas and Isreal reached an agreement.
In the chamber, the Russian ambassador Vasily Nebenzya told the security council the resolution was a “hypocritical spectacle” that put no real pressure on Israel over its war crimes. Moscow also said the episode showed the US administration was more interested in throwing a bone to American voters and persuading a domestic audience it was being even-handed in the crisis. Source
So. Mission Accomplished.