UNITED NATIONS, April 14: The United States on Thursday blocked as unfairly critical a Security Council statement that would have urged Israel to refrain from ‘excessive use of force’ against the Palestinians.

The text, under negotiations for the past three days by the 15-member council, came in response to intensive Israeli bombardments of the Gaza Strip over the past few days aimed at putting an end to rocket firing by Palestinian militant groups.

Fifteen Palestinians were killed in Israeli air and artillery strikes over the weekend.

The draft text would have called on Israel ‘to refrain from excessive use of force’ and on the Palestinian Authority to ‘take a clear public stance against violence’.

“The draft text that was negotiated was not fair and balanced and consistent with our long-standing policy. We are not prepared to support a text that distorts the reality in the region,” US Ambassador John Bolton told reporters.”

“A lot of changes were made but the balance of the text was still not adequate in our view. We think it was disproportionately critical of Israel and unfairly so and needlessly so,” he added.

Palestinian UN representative Ryad Mansour said the council’s 14 other members had shown ‘a tremendous amount of understanding and flexibility’.

“But unfortunately one member (the United States) is shielding and protecting Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in Gaza and other parts of the occupied territory,” he added.

Mr Mansour said that at the initiative of the non-aligned movement, the Arab UN group, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference and others, the Security Council would hold an open session on the Middle East on Monday.—AFP