China slams U.S. for UN veto, as arrest warrants issued for Netanyahu & 'dead' Hamas chief

China has led the criticism of the U.S. for vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, as the outgoing Biden administration blocked international action aimed at halting Israel's war with Hamas.

Meanwhile, the International Criminal Court in The Hague said on Thursday that it had issued warrants for the arrest of Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri (also known as Mohammed Deif) and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its former defense minister Yoav Gallant.

Israel said in August it had killed Deif in an air strike in Gaza earlier this year, although Hamas has never confirmed this.

The ICC said Israel's acceptance of the court's jurisdiction was not required.

Both Netanyahu and Gallant will be liable for arrest if they travel to any of the more than 120 countries that are party to the ICC.

Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett said the ICC's decision to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant were a "mark of shame" for the court. Israel's main opposition leader Yair Lapid also denounced the court's move, calling it "a reward for terrorism".

At the UN on Wednesday its 15-member council voted on a resolution put forward by 10 non-permanent members that called for an "immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire" in the 13-month conflict and separately demanded the release of hostages.

Only the U.S. voted against, using its veto as a permanent council member to block the resolution, the fifth time it has done so on resolutions regarding the conflict.

Robert Wood, deputy U.S. ambassador to the UN, said Washington had made clear it would only support a resolution that explicitly calls for the immediate release of hostages as part of a ceasefire.

"A durable end to the war must come with the release of the hostages. These two urgent goals are inextricably linked. This resolution abandoned that necessity, and for that reason, the United States could not support it," he said.

Wood said the U.S. had sought compromise, but the text of the proposed resolution would have sent a "dangerous message" to Palestinian militant group Hamas that "there's no need to come back to the negotiating table."

Israel's UN ambassador Danny Danon said ahead of the vote the text was not a resolution for peace but "a resolution for appeasement" of Hamas.

"History will remember who stood with the hostages and who abandoned them," Danon said.

But there was swift condemnation in the international community.

China's UN ambassador, Fu Cong told the chamber: "It is incomprehensible that for the past year or so, the United States has been so insistent in rendering the Council incapable of playing its role, leading to its paralysis. The U.S. has claimed to be conducting parallel diplomatic efforts and has repeatedly promised that progress would be made soon in the negotiations. 

"It is incomprehensible that to date, the so-called diplomatic negotiations have been going in circles. Why is Israel allowed to continue its military operations while constantly putting forth new conditions for negotiations?"

Fu said the repeated use of veto by the U.S. "has reduced the authority of the Security Council and international law to an all-time low."

Ireland made a similar plea, with ambassador Fergal Mythen telling delegates: "Ireland believes that the veto should be abolished. It is an anachronism that has no place in the 21st century."

Portugal joined calls for reform of the veto which has existed since the United Nations was founded in 1945. All five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, U.S., France, Russia, and the UK) can veto any decision other than 'procedural' ones.

When Russia vetoed a similar resolution earlier this week calling for a ceasefire in Sudan, the U.S. itself joined the widespread international criticism.

Other news from the region

• Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday called for a ceasefire in Gaza, as he visited Brazil's capital. 

• Hamas' acting Gaza chief Khalil al-Hayya insisted there would be no hostages-for-prisoners swap deal with Israel unless the war in the Palestinian enclave ended.

• The Israeli military bombed at least five crowded homes in northern Gaza early on Thursday with many casualties buried beneath the rubble, according to Palestinian health officials.

• Xi expressed concerns about the spread of the conflict in Gaza, and "called for a ceasefire and an end to the war at an early date," Xinhua news agency said, as he met with his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

• The Israeli military said Wednesday three soldiers, including a 70-year-old, were killed in south Lebanon, where its troops have battled Hezbollah since late September after a year of cross-border exchanges of fire.

• A 30-year-old man was killed by rocket shrapnel next to a playground in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya on Thursday, Israel's MDA medical service said.

• Israeli strikes killed 71 pro-Iran militants in the Syrian city of Palmyra, with more than a third of them identified as fighters from Iraq and Lebanon, according to the the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. 

• Dozens of people were killed or unaccounted for after Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, a hospital director and the civil defence agency said on Thursday. One strike near the Kamal Adwan hospital in the north of the territory left "dozens of people" dead or missing, the facility's director Hossam Abu Safiya said.

• The U.S. Senate on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to block three resolutions that would have halted the transfer of some U.S. weapons to Israel.

• Hezbollah's leader said Israel cannot impose conditions for a truce in Lebanon, as visiting US envoy Amos Hochstein headed to Israel to try to negotiate an end to the war.