Human Rights Watch hits U.S. with war-crime alert after cease-fire veto

The nonprofit organization Human Rights Watch on Friday contended the U.S. could be “complicity with war crimes” as it continues to provide weapons and support for Israel as civilian deaths rise in the Gaza Strip.

The organization’s message comes after the U.S. vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. The resolution failed on a 13 to 1 vote, with the United Kingdom abstaining from voting.

Louis Charbonneau, Human Rights Watch’s U.N. director, said America used its veto to prevent the world body from making some of the “calls the U.S. itself has been demanding” for both sides in the war to comply with international humanitarian law, the protection of civilians and the release of all hostages.

“By continuing to provide Israel with weapons and diplomatic cover as it commits atrocities, including collectively punishing the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, the U.S. risks complicity in war crimes,” Mr. Charbonneau wrote on X.

Over 17,000 Palestinians, including 7,000 children, have been killed in Gaza since the war started after Hamas’ Oct. 7 raid on Israel, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis during its terrorist attack.

Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood criticized the Security Council’s resolution for failing to condemn the Hamas rampage on Oct. 7. He also said the measure didn’t recognize that Israel has the right to defend itself.

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“Although the United States strongly supports a durable peace, in which both Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace and security, we do not support this resolution’s call for an unsustainable cease-fire that will only plant the seeds for the next war,” Mr. Woods said.

Fighting in the region paused in November during a cease-fire that let Israel trade Palestinian prisoners with Hamas for hostages.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who called for the vote, decried the veto that sank the resolution, saying the situation in the Gaza Strip is a “spiraling humanitarian nightmare.”  

“The people of Gaza are being told to move like human pinballs — ricocheting between ever-smaller slivers of the south, without any of the basics for survival,” Mr. Guterres said. “But nowhere in Gaza is safe.”