The US on Friday vetoed a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, where Israel has launched hundreds of strikes, relief efforts were faltering, and people were growing so desperate for basic necessities that some were stoning and raiding aid convoys.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres and most members of the Security Council had backed the measure, saying that the humanitarian catastrophe in the coastal enclave where 2.2 million Palestinians live could threaten world stability.

But the US, which is one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, blocked the resolution, arguing that Israel has the right to defend itself against Hamas attacks. The vote was 13-1, with Britain abstaining and some US allies such as France voting for a ceasefire.

Robert Wood, who was representing the US on the council, said after the veto that the resolution for an unconditional and immediate ceasefire “was not only unrealistic but dangerous — it would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeat what it did on October 7”.

The failed resolution came as the UN reported that it was struggling to deliver essential goods including food, medicine and cooking gas to desperate civilians. “Civil order is breaking down,” Thomas White, the Gaza director of the UN relief agency for Palestinians, wrote on social media.