UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. Photo: wiki commons.

The U.S. has blocked the release of a United Nations statement on the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza because the statement failed to acknowledge that Hamas started that conflict by bombarding Israel with rockets. Erin Pelton, spokeswoman for the U.S. mission to the UN, said the statement “failed to address the root cause,” according to Reuters.

“We made clear that we would measure any action by the Security Council based on whether it supported the ongoing diplomacy toward de-escalation of violence and a durable outcome that ends the rocket attacks on Israeli cities… By failing to call for the immediate and permanent halt to rocket launches from Gaza into Israel, this press statement failed to contribute constructively to those goals. As such, we could not agree to this statement,” Pelton said.